The view is better from up here.
1. Are You Consuming AI Content, or Producing With It?
A few years ago I wrote that most people define themselves by what they consume, and that the people who move themselves and the world forward define themselves by what they produce.
AI has turned both of those up at the same time. There has never been more to consume, because the feeds, threads, summaries, explainer videos and “10 things you need to know about X” posts are now mostly AI-spun and effectively infinite.
But the same tool that is generating all of that content can also be harnessed to produce more of the things you want as well.
Most people end up on the consuming side. AI content is cheap to make and engineered to hold your attention, so there is an endless supply of it, and it expands to fill every spare minute you give it.
So what do you do about it?
The same thing as before: be a producer, not a consumer.
For every block you would normally spend scrolling through what AI made for everyone else, spend it directing AI to make something of yours instead, such as:
- A first draft of the proposal or article you’ve been putting off,
- A small spreadsheet or script that fixes an annoying part of your week,
- A decision you’ve been sitting on for a month, worked through properly,
- Your own social media content.
A quick way to check where you stand is to track two numbers for one week: hours spent consuming AI-generated content, and hours spent using AI tools to produce something. Whichever number is bigger tells you which side you’re on, and the consuming hours are the ones to start changing.
2. Add AI to Your Talent Stack
Your talent stack is the combination of skills and specific knowledge that is unique to you.
I picked up the idea from pre-controversy Scott Adams years ago (RIP). It’s very hard to be the best in the world at one thing, but it’s nowhere near as hard to be in the top 25% at four or five things, and to be one of the very few people who combines them.
Mine for example are systems, business operations, productivity, self-discipline, writing and social skills. I’m world-class in a couple of them, and I’d say top 25% at the rest, and the specific combination is rare.
AI is the newest skill you can add to the stack. Most people think the value is in “learning AI”, but everyone is learning AI. Generic AI fluency is going the same way “can use Excel” went, it’s just expected now.
What’s scarce is AI stacked on top of your specific knowledge. Take an operations manager who knows every handoff and bottleneck in their business, and can now build the automations and agents to fix them. Or a lawyer or accountant who directs AI inside a field that only they know well. Nobody can copy that easily, because they don’t have the other half.
And the knowledge you can’t look up, the things you earned through your own experience, become MORE valuable paired with AI, not less. AI can do the work, but you’re the one who knows what good looks like in your field.
Write down your stack, three to five things. Take the strongest one and ask yourself: “What can I now do in this area that wasn’t possible before?” Then go and build it.
If the AI half of your stack is the part that’s missing, that’s what my course The Complete Claude, Claude Code & AI for Work Productivity is for.
3. Courses
I have a range of online courses that teach business people what they need to know about productivity and AI:
1. The Complete Claude, Claude Code & AI for Work Productivity
A comprehensive course taking you from beginner AI concepts like prompt and context engineering, to cutting-edge AI productivity using terminal-based AI tools like Claude Code for non-coding office work. Usable with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and other current LLMs.
2. Next Level Productivity
A practical, straightforward course that teaches you how to achieve elite-level personal productivity in today’s constantly interrupted world.
3. The AI Agents, Automations and Agentic Workflows Guide
This non-technical course shows business people and non-coders how they can build and use AI agents in ChatGPT and Zapier.
4. The AI Playbook
This is my longer premium course on how businesses can deploy AI tools and technology across their processes and teams.
5. ChatGPT for Managers
See how AI can solve complex management challenges in less than 30 seconds. Full prompt library and examples included.
That’s it for this week!
— Aaron