Your hundredth attempt will always beat your first.
1. Productivity: Put in the Reps
There’s this romantic idea that success comes from one brilliant insight, one perfect execution, one flawless attempt.
That’s not how it works.
Sometimes you just need to brute force your way through. Your tenth attempt will be better than your first. Your hundredth will certainly be better than your tenth.
Just start. Then do it again. And again.
2. Ops: The Lost Art of Professionalism
I recently saw A House of Dynamite and there’s a scene with the Deputy National Security Adviser joins a critical video call from the car, then hops out and runs to the White House with Airpods and phone in hand, while dealing with a shaky cell phone connection.
Don’t be that like him.
Look, I get it. Remote work has made everything more casual. But if you’re the founder or a senior leader, professionalism still matters.
What does professional look like in 2026?
- Show up to calls on time. Not 5 minutes late with an excuse.
- Be stationary. Don’t take important calls whilst walking around. Don’t take them at cafes where it’s loud.
- Come prepared. Know what you want to accomplish.
Your team notices. If you’re scattered and unprepared, that gives them an excuse to be as well.
3. Tech: AI for Your Annual Review
I did my annual review back in December with AI assistance.
It used to take me two weeks. This year? Three days.
I moved all my journals in markdown files: daily entries, weekly reflections, monthly summaries. AI can read through all of that in minutes.
I had Claude analyse the full year and pull out:
- Accomplishments I’d forgotten about.
- Patterns in my behaviour (most productive in the mornings, less so after 3pm).
- Goals I actually achieved versus what I thought I achieved.
The AI spotted trends I would have missed. It reminded me of wins from January that felt like ancient history by December.
In 2025 we could get away with saying that AI usage was for “early adopters”.
But in 2026 if you are not using AI at work and to push your personal productivity, you are now behind.
4. Courses
I have a range of online courses that teach business people what they need to know about productivity and AI:
1. Next Level Productivity
A practical, straightforward course that teaches you how to achieve elite-level personal productivity in today’s constantly interrupted world.
2. 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.
3. 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.
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