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| One hand in the oven, one hand on the phone, and AI keeping him alive. |
Using AI Like a Busy Human (Who Has Absolutely No Time for Nonsense)
Look, I don’t know who needs to hear this, but: AI is not here to replace you. It’s here to keep you from screaming into a dish towel at 11:47 PM because you forgot to thaw the chicken.
I’ve been using AI long enough now that it’s basically a coworker who never clocks out, never judges me, and occasionally suggests things that make me question its understanding of human life. And honestly? That’s part of the charm.
Over the past year, I’ve built a whole ecosystem around this chaos — including a brand‑new project called AI for Busy Humans, which is basically a survival kit for anyone who wants to use AI without becoming a full‑time “prompt engineer” (a job title that sounds fake but somehow pays real money).
But before we get there, let’s talk about how this all actually started.
The Real Start of My Real AI Journey: GeminAI in the Kitchen
People assume my AI journey started with something noble, like research or productivity.
No.
It started in the kitchen.
If you’ve seen my post “GeminAI – In the Kitchen”, you already know this was the moment AI stopped being “a fancy search engine” and started being a chaotic but surprisingly helpful sous‑chef.
I wasn’t asking it for trivia.
I wasn’t asking it to summarize articles.
I was asking it to help me figure out dinner.
And suddenly AI wasn’t just giving me answers (like oven temps and timing) — it was collaborating with me. It was asking questions, suggesting alternatives, adjusting based on what I actually had in the pantry. It was the first time I thought:
“Oh. This thing can actually work with me, not just for me.”
Sure, it occasionally recommended ingredients that only exist in alternate dimensions. But it also helped me plan meals, reduce decision fatigue, and stop staring into the fridge like it owed me money.
That was the moment AI became part of my life, not just my browser.
The Grundig Radio Recap: When AI Helped Me Not Electrocute Myself
Somewhere between “AI, help me not burn dinner” and “AI, help me build a website,” there was a very important middle chapter: the Grundig radio recap project.
A friend asked if I worked on old radios because he had this Grundig that only buzzed when you turned it on — which is radio‑speak for “the capacitors have given up on life.” It was exactly the kind of project that sits between “satisfying repair” and “accidental smoke test.”
So I did what any reasonable person would do:
I dragged AI into it.
I described the symptoms.
I fed it snippets from repair forums.
I uploaded schematics and asked it to translate them into “English for humans who don’t want to die.”
AI didn’t hold the soldering iron, but it absolutely kept me from:
- ordering the wrong parts,
- misreading the polarity,
- or deciding “I’ll just recap everything” like a YouTube comment section told me to.
That project was the moment I realized AI wasn’t just a toy or a recipe generator. It could sit in the middle of a messy, real‑world project and help me think straighter.
And when I was getting ready to check if my soldering had worked, it mentioned the "dim bulb tester" - something to ensure that flipping that power switch on the radio wouldn't suddenly ruin all the little things inside of it due to a short from a bad solder connection. AI had my back.
Mr. T’s Fitness Tracker: When AI Started Calling Me Out
Then came Mr. T’s Fitness Tracker, which is exactly what it sounds like: a website that politely tattles on me if I stop moving.
I used to manually post my workouts to Facebook every day like some kind of Victorian diary keeper:
“Dear friends, today I walked 1.2 miles and did not perish.”
At some point, I thought:
What if I made a robot do this for me?
Fast‑forward through a few hours of questionable decisions, and suddenly I had:
- a website,
- an automated dashboard,
- a workflow that pulled data from my watch,
- and a system that posted my progress without me lifting a finger.
Mr. T’s Fitness Tracker was born.
And honestly? It works.
It works too well.
I’ve created a machine that knows when I’ve been lazy.
And Now: AI for Busy Humans
After enough experiments, disasters, and “wait, that actually worked” moments, I realized something:
Most people don’t want to “learn AI.” They want AI to make their life easier.
So I built AI for Busy Humans — a collection of simple, practical guides that help you:
- save time,
- reduce mental load,
- automate boring tasks,
- and avoid the “I asked AI for help and now I’m in a cult” problem.
It’s not a course.
It’s not a newsletter.
It’s not a 97‑step funnel that ends with a $3,000 mastermind and a free "bonus" PDF you’ll never read.
It’s just… tools.
For busy humans.
Like us.
What I Actually Use AI For (Daily, Without Shame)
Here’s a non‑exhaustive list of things AI handles for me so I can focus on being a functional adult:
- meal planning (until it gets weird),
- workout tracking (Mr. T is always watching),
- website building (Hugo + Copilot = magic),
- brain dumping (my notes app is 90% AI‑assisted chaos — or at least that's the plan),
- explaining things I should already know (and things I don't),
- fixing my code,
- fixing my writing,
- attempting to fix my life (results may vary).
And now, thanks to AI for Busy Humans, I’ve turned all of that into something other people can use too.
The Real Secret: AI Works Best When You Stop Trying to Impress It
People keep asking me:
“How do you get such good results from AI?”
The answer is simple:
I talk to it like I’m texting a friend who owes me money.
No fancy prompts.
No jargon.
No “act as a world‑class expert in the field of blah blah blah.”
Just:
- “Help me fix this.”
- “Make this easier.”
- “Explain this like I’m tired.”
- “What do I do with three eggs and a moral crisis?”
AI responds shockingly well to honesty.
So Here’s My Not‑Really‑a‑Pitch Pitch
If you’re a busy human — and I know you are — check out AI for Busy Humans.
It’s the distilled version of everything I’ve learned from:
- letting AI run my kitchen,
- using AI to help with real‑world projects like the Grundig radio recap,
- building Mr. T’s Fitness Tracker,
- using AI to build websites,
- and generally outsourcing my brain to the cloud.
It’s simple.
It’s practical.
It’s not trying to sell you enlightenment.
It’s just trying to give you your time back.
Stay busy (but efficiently). And if you want a simple place to start, aiforbusyhumans.com is waiting.
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