For a long time, I thought my problem was discipline.
I could see the work, I cared about it. I would know what I needed to do, and often how to do it. But getting from knowing how to do a thing to doing the thing can be a big gap.
There would be too many tabs open, too many notes in too many places, and a decision with six dependencies I was afraid to lose track of. A good idea would arrive while I was doing something else, and I would have nowhere to put it that I could find later. I would sit down to write and encounter both a blank page and a crowded room: half-formed thoughts, old conversations, research, obligations, and the running calculation of what I had probably already forgotten.
From the outside, this can look like disorganization. From the inside, it feels more like trying to cook a complicated meal without a counter.
When I started really pulling AI into my work, I didn't start with having it write my work for me. Mostly, I used it to help me hold onto things. To turn a scattered conversation into notes I could return to. To give a vague idea enough shape that I could work with it. To remember the context of a decision and why I made it. To help me sort through a pile of possibilities without having to carry every possibility in my head at once.
The difference was fairly immediate, but subtle—I wasn't suddenly smarter, I just felt more available to my own intelligence. And it was empowering.
I've spent much of my career working on versions of that problem: I've helped make creative tooling more accessible, complicated systems more navigable, strategic ideas clear enough for a business to act on, and complex information distilled enough to digest. The hard part has always been the same: People might have amazing creativity, thinking, and even work ethic, but without access to the right tools, context, language, and support, they can end up stuck.
AI has the potential to open that up.
A chef calls their prepped workspace mise en place—they make sure everything is in its place before the insanity of dinner service begins. Later in the evening, this preparation makes improvisation possible. You chop, measure, and arrange ahead of time so that when something changes (as it always does), you can respond with your best.
The question, in my mind, is not whether AI will make us more productive; of course it will, sometimes. But the more important question is whether it will make more people capable of doing work that previously demanded an unreasonable amount of memory, context, or confidence. In other words, it could help create a mise en place for our working days.
That is what AI can become for the mind: a form of cognitive accessibility. A way to create enough structure around your thinking that you can make decisions, express deeper ideas, and adapt under pressure in the moment.
The future we can create is one where AI clears the kitchen counter before service, making more room for people to operate at their most creative, most inspired, and most free—and bringing work into the world that could only have come from them.
