Hello everyone,

This week I want to share the three things that changed how much I use AI, because none of them are about the tool itself.

If you are only watching other people use it, you will have nothing of your own to say when the board, or your boss, asks. I had to become a user, if I was going to advise my clients how Ai was going to fit within their leadership workflow, and I have learned so much along the way about how it works. These three things are how I did it.

The first is mindset. Early on I made a very deliberate decision that I was going to find ways to use AI, even when doing it the old way would have been quicker in the moment. I wanted to understand how it actually worked, so I stayed curious and I kept going even when it was a bit clunky and annoying. A tip I learned was, whenever I got stuck I simply asked the AI how to do the thing I was trying to do, and on the whole it gave me really good guidance. It teaches you as you go, if you let it.

The second is two screens. I have my main large screen for the actual work, and I have turned my laptop into the place AI lives, so it is open all day. It does not matter which tool you use, or whether you have two screens or just two windows. The point is that having it there and open removes the friction. When it is one glance away, you explore more, you try a better prompt, and you can move work between the two without breaking your flow. Friction is the thing that kills a new habit before it starts. For a lot of the leaders I work with, the friction is not the screen it is forgetting to use their Ai tool because they are short of time.

The third is voice, and this one surprised me most. I barely type anymore. I pay for an app called Wispr Flow, which I love, and I have it on my phone and my computer. I just sit and chat away. You speak so much faster than you type, and I find AI is very good at taking my slightly jumbled thoughts and organising them. When it reflects them back to me, I can see straight away where I was clear and where I was not. Voice also lets me iterate fast, in the same way I would with a real person when they are doing something and say, 'no, not quite, more like this'. That back and forth is how I work with AI now, and it makes the whole thing so much easier. If you are not ready to pay for anything, most tools have some voice option built in, or you can record a voice memo and paste the transcript in.

So there they are. Mindset, two screens, and use voice instead of typing, but I would absolutely say that have made an enormous difference to my AI adoption.

If you want to find more ways to use AI at work and build your confidence as a leader, try this. Ask AI how to help with one real piece of work you already have this week. Then give it a go. It won’t be perfect straight away but I find you learn this fast by experimenting.

Have a great week,

Helen

P.S. I would love to know what you have done in order to improve your confidence working with AI, and which one of these approaches you have never tried. Tap reply and tell me.