How I use AI #1: proactive calendar preparation

When people ask me “what do you use AI for” I usually say “everything.”

But turns out just saying “everything” is useless to most people 😅

So I’m going to start listing how I use AI specifically. Breaking it down. Starting with the basics.

“AI gets you 80% of the way there” is a good mental model to get started with. I think the wrong approach is to then chase 100%… it’s often like fool’s gold.

The question I actually ask is where is 80% good enough. Where can I oversee the last 20%. Or, even better: where am I currently at 0%, and don’t want to be? AI will be great there.

Use #1: Proactive calendar preparation.

I have an agent that scans my calendar and prepares everything I need for each event. A brief on the agenda and the invitees. Previous conversations and interactions. Travel. Clashes with other events, or tasks I need to have done for the meeting to actually go well.

The ethos behind it is a good rule of thumb for thinking about AI: if I had six months and unlimited patience to prepare for this meeting, what would I do? Then I ask AI to do that.

Is it always perfect? Well, almost to be honest. But it doesn’t need to me - it’s prep for me so I can easily recover from any mistakes.

Plus, I was at 0%. I didn’t have the time or patience for deep prep on every calendar event. So 80% is a massive gain on something I’d love to do but was never practically getting to.

Most of what AI does for me runs through a local system I’ve built for myself, which is a post for another day. It’s changed how I work more than I expected.

Do you do something similar, or different?