Welcome to this issue of One to Better, a newsletter about sharing ideas and challenges along the way.
Procrastination has killed off more dreams than any disease. Yes, I referred to procrastination as a disease, and I'm sure it's at the top of the list.
Think about it. Of all the ailments that torment human beings, this thing we call procrastination has done more damage to each of us personally and to the world than we could ever imagine.
This morning I wrote in my journal;
"I think I secretly want to be a writer, but can't make up my mind. The new AI tools like ChatGPT and other options make writing easier, but I still procrastinate. I feel like this will be my obituary; Thomas Alan could have been many things, but alas, he procrastinated and died. That'll be it, nothing else, nada."
Dramatic? maybe a little, but possible.
Imagine a world, where you act on and do all the things you want to do. Imagine how this would change your life. Will AI tools make this happen?
How many problems would be solved? How many innovations would materialize? How much would more progress be made? How many lives would be better? How many times am I going to say, "How many"? You get the idea. It's unmeasurable.
Maybe this is why the promise of AI tools is so appealing because they can get us closer to 'I did, instead of ‘I could have, or I should have.
I'm writing this using an AI tool called HyperWrite. I like HyperWrite because it uses autocomplete and sentence fill to keep me writing. Each time I pause to type a new word or sentence or to get distracted and then procrastinate finishing, it suggests the next word or sentence.
While annoying on my iPhone and Android, producing stupid and sometimes embarrassing text messages, this process works here. Why? because it keeps me writing in a flow state and removes the pain of staring at a blank screen or flashing cursor.
Ironically, I have procrastinated writing for weeks, and when I finally sit down to write, I write about procrastination. Go figure.
Maybe that's it; when I want to write, I'll pick something I don't like about myself and write about it. I'll be miserable, but I'll have written. Ha Ha!
Do things, take action, get it out of your head, and share with the world. We've already won if AI tools can help us do this better. The impact of AI tools on our ability to move the needle in the right direction is profound.
The printing press made way for an explosion of new information. AI is going to going to take this to the next level.
Some think AI tools like ChatGPT will make us progressively dumber because we won't have to think, but I don't see it this way. Writing in collaboration with AI has stimulated my thinking. When I started, it was to rant about procrastination. Still, the more I wrote, the more I thought and realized how I was writing about something that might be useful, a solution or at least a potential solution, to not doing, in this case not writing, well, as long as we don't procrastinate.
We've used tools like Grammarly for years to help our drafts become final versions. Now, we have tools to help our thoughts become drafts.
AI may not cure procrastination, but it's helping me think about it and write more about it. That's a win to me.
Thanks for being here 🙏, now go do something. ✌️
Tools reference in this issue