I find this to be an interesting question, because I do a lot of thinking about what I “should” do. However, thinking about what should be done doesn’t mean the potential changes you’d need to implement are always actionable. I’ll take a moment to dive into a recent example of a decision to use AI to implement a change in my regular planning/decisioning process.
When planning and doing things, I tend to get stuck in decision-making for “non-essential” long-term tasks. I have a hard time breaking down tasks or prioritizing in a way that feels like I can immediately start learning and doing. As a result, this often leads to a specific type of paralysis and procrastination.
I have a lot of goals for this year – The Year of 2026. It’s different now, though. I feel it this time in a way I haven’t for a while. I feel ready to create, to learn. I feel focused and driven and a desire to invest in myself.
I made a list, this time writing down everything I want to do in the next year and marking the priorities. Yet, I knew that wasn’t granular enough, and a good friend of mine confirmed it. I had to choose what of these things I wanted to accomplish in a much smaller frame of time. She recommended I use Claude AI to help me break down my tasks into a granular 3-month timeline, based on a book she had read, The Twelve Week Year.
Initially, I had hesitation. It’s not that I never use AI, but I try not to. I really do enjoy challenging myself and doing things on my own when I can. However, how much were my principles getting in the way of getting anything done at all? For example, in an earlier iteration of this thought process, which you can see in an earlier post, I used this thinking to develop a curriculum, but I couldn’t get myself to sit down and really do it. I had outsourced the resource-finding, but I hadn’t done the internal work to figure out how necessary it was for me to go into Data Science to that depth at the time in my life. Additionally, I still wasn’t able to break it down into a schedule that guided me in a way that felt “do-able.”
So here I am, trying again and aiming to use the tools at my disposal to help myself, preventing arbitrary principles from hindering me. If my weak point is the aforementioned task prioritization and breakdown, why not work with myself instead of against myself and accept the help?
So, I had a short conversation with Claude to break down my 3 months with my work and my personal life in mind. I asked it to block out my days and weeks in a way that was realistic to me and my tendencies, and? I feel excited. I know I can do this.
In short, if I did anything differently, it was to work with myself instead of against myself. It was to acknowledge my shortcomings and ask for help and to use the tools at my disposal to make things a little easier when things felt impossible.
Much love. ❤
Nicole Ohanian 