Jenga AI

You know that feeling when you’re working with AI, and the chat gets so long it starts to lag?

It used to give you a reply in 30 seconds.

But now it’s timing out and asking if you want to keep waiting or close the page.

I used to deal with this a lot. I’d be clinging desperately to these long winded chats hoping to preserve any resemblance of context we had left so I wouldn’t have to teach it everything I’ve already taught it in a new chat all over again.

It’s kind of like the way you hold your breath as you near the end of a game of Jenga. You’re pulling pieces, trying not to break the whole thing, but you know it’s about to topple over soon.

And with AI, if you’re anything like me, you’d become more calculated with your requests.

Hesitant to ask more.

Hoping for it to come back with the information you need. But in reality, it’s hallucinating, forgetting the rules you set 2 days ago, and getting worse the longer it goes.

But starting a new chat feels like starting over with no idea how to get back to the sweet spot.

And that’s a major problem with using AI to assist just about anything. If you don’t know what it’s supposed to be doing or why, it feels like a mystery. But when you actively train AI with what you know, or what you’re learning. It can more realiably give you what you’re asking for. And when it’s off, you can correct it. And improve it for next time.

Anyway…

That's not really what today's email is about.

But it is the thing that made me realize why using personalized context files matters way more than creating good prompts.

I had a call with coaching client Abbey last week, and she’s been applying the Threads writing system I teach for a while now and getting good results. In fact, working with her is what inspired the Threads AI Writing coach inside the community. Basically, I gave her a markdown file, and creating content became easier.

Since that problem is solved, it’s time to move on to getting good with email.

So I’ve decided to do the same thing.

I’m now creating AI context file for writing emails. And similarly, it’s not meant to just write your emails for you, but to give you what you need when you need it, so that writing good emails feels a bit more like second nature. It draws from the idea of psychological scaffolding.

Give just the right amount of support, when it’s needed, and learning accelerates.

With the goal of it being like having me as your writing coach inside your back pocket whenever you need me. I can just hang out in the sidebar of notion database (or whichever LLM you prefer to use) and can help you work through getting stuck on openings, finding stories, working through transitions, etc…

So today I thought maybe the people on my email list would be interested in something like this too?

And if so, I want you to know, this isn’t something that’s just going to be made available for free, instead if will either live on the premium tier, or require you to reach a certain level within the community in order to access it. But before I spend the time to turn it into an active writing coach like I did with Threads, I just want to know if there’s actual interest.

So if the idea of a personalized AI email writing coach (customized to you, your voice, and your brand) that can help you start writing emails more easily sounds useful to you, just reply back and let me know.

Say something like, “Hey Kevin, I do ABC XYZ, and I think an AI email writing coach would be helpful for me.”

If you do, I might create it.

That’s it for today,

Kevin Hood