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Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.
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“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” — Alan Kay
This was another example from my life when I wanted to stand in my own way.
There are people who resist it and there are people who welcome it.
And I have to tell you something very honestly here: I’m one of those who wants to resist it.
Most of my friends and colleagues around my age, mostly millennials, hate the idea of including AI in their daily lives.
They miss the good old times, and I feel that too when we talk about nostalgia.
But I’m also someone who has been practicing self-awareness for more than a decade now, and I know what this kind of behavior means.
It means standing in your own way.
If AI could make my life better, but because of some socially generated principle I refuse to use it, then that is not really a smart decision.
My parents would resist and complain. By default, I would probably do the same, but not this time.
For the last two years, I’ve been using AI every single day, and I have to admit that my life has become better and easier.
It’s mind-blowing how much AI can help you in your daily life if you use it the right way.
And that is exactly my goal: to make my weekdays better.
Because if I can enjoy my weekdays, then I don’t need to wait for the weekend to enjoy my life. The pressure gets lower and my life satisfaction increases.
So if you’re able to put aside your stubbornness, then we can dive into it directly and see how you can also make your life easier by using AI.
Administrative stuff
I don’t know how many times I procrastinated on something like contacting the tax authorities or applying for German residency.
Dealing with these things includes writing emails, understanding long letters and replying properly.
Sometimes I needed to ask a friend to help me read legal jargon or reread something I had written so I could make sure I was expressing myself clearly.
But today?
Writing an email or a letter takes seconds with AI. Understanding a complicated reply from the authorities is also easier because you can ask AI to summarize it, tell you what you need to take care of and what you should think about before making a decision.
Currently, I don’t have anything on my desk that I need to take care of, and this is something I have never experienced before.
And guess what?
Less procrastination means less stress. AI takes care of the boring stuff and you can sleep better.
Financials & Taxes
No, you don’t need to dump your whole bank account into ChatGPT. Don’t worry.
But AI can help you make smarter financial decisions. When I do my taxes, I ask AI whether there is an opportunity to get some money back or whether I have thought about everything.
Last time, I wanted to deduct my coaching training from my taxes, which had cost a lot.
People told me that the tax authorities would not approve it. But AI wrote a convincing explanation about why that training was important for my job, and in the end, they approved it and I got back a bunch of money.
What about my investments? Did I give AI access to my portfolio? Obviously not.
But I let AI challenge the financial decisions I make on my own. I do my own research on ETFs and index funds, and AI has asked good questions and pointed out things I had never thought about before.
Food & Supplements
I was one of the happiest people on earth when I could stop searching for recipes on Google every single day.
I cook my own meals every day, so I need a long list of healthy and nutritious recipes. With AI, I get ideas, instructions personalized for my kitchen and a shopping list.
If I’m unsure about certain ingredients, I can ask about the nutritional values and whether they fit my workout plan.
When it comes to supplements, the internet is full of options.
Which one should I take? Should I take supplements at all? What is NMN? What are all those peptides?
I can ask questions and challenge everything the marketing geniuses want to sell me. I usually ask about medical trials and the actual results, so I can make a more data-driven decision.
Training & Exercise
I always hated putting together a training plan for myself, and I was never ready to pay for fitness apps or a personal trainer.
Back then, I Googled a lot, read about exercises and searched for videos about how to do them properly.
With AI, I can create my own personalized fitness plan while defining what I want to pay attention to. What kind of pain do I usually have? Which exercises do I dislike? What do I actually want to achieve?
AI helps me develop a training plan for the gym and also for marathon training.
After a session, I can tell it how it went, how I felt and what didn’t work, and we can adjust the plan accordingly.
Travel & Planning
Traveling has never been easier than it is today. I do almost all my planning with AI.
Since I know myself very well, I know what I’m looking for, but often I don’t know where to find it.
What is a good area in a city I want to visit? Which areas should I avoid? Where is the best restaurant near my hotel? What is the easiest way to get somewhere?
Those questions used to require long research sessions.
Now you can get a useful overview within a few minutes.
Shopping
Shopping was never that difficult, but AI can still help you make smarter decisions.
If you’re not sure about the quality or origin of a product, you can ask AI to research it instead of falling for all the marketing nonsense on the internet.
And if you end up in some kind of legal problem because of a purchase, you can also get help figuring out how to deal with it.
Last time, I got back around 600 dollars from my airline because AI wrote a good email about my rights and explained that the delay had been long enough that I was eligible for compensation.
It took me five minutes.
Learning & Personal Projects
AI changed the way I learn about new things.
Earlier in my life, when I was sitting in an in-person seminar and I didn’t understand something, I stayed quiet. Or I asked a question, got an answer, and then said that I understood even when I didn’t.
For example, when I was reading a book by Stephen Hawking and he was discussing something I couldn’t understand, which happened a lot, I turned to AI for help.
I asked it to explain the general theory of relativity to me.
It did, but I still didn’t understand it. Then I told AI to explain it to me as if I were a six-year-old child.
That was the explanation I needed.
I do this regularly now because I can ask as many questions as I want until I truly understand what I’m learning about.
AI also helps with my personal projects. It helps me organize my writing, gives me book recommendations and even helps me develop my own app for a problem I personally have.
You don’t necessarily need to wait for a company to develop a solution for your problem anymore. You can start building it yourself.
The goal is not to outsource your life
Before you think that you should outsource your entire life to AI, that’s not what I mean.
It’s about making your life simpler and easier. It’s about being able to look at more options and find the best one efficiently. It’s about saving time that you can spend on the things you love.
It’s about delegating chores to AI, which, fortunately, doesn’t complain about them.
The whole idea is about making your life better, but it only works if you don’t stand in your own way and if you’re willing to welcome this technology.
Be conscious about it. Be deliberate. Focus on the benefits, but don’t stop thinking.
If AI gives you two options, think about which one fits you best. AI can help you find them, but you should keep the final word for yourself.
This is how I use AI every single day, and it’s wild how much it helps me create a better life.
Thank you for reading.
It means a lot that you spent your time here.
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I appreciate you posting this impressive post. While reading your post, I received understanding of AI and I am relieved concerning how so helpful AI can be in my everday life. I am a lady that writes my thoughts and my experiences with good, bad, and with broken and unhappy people. But now my comfort zone is not a comfort to me. Though I am comfortable with a pen in my hand and writing material. I want so much to learn AI. My journals I've written through the years are gone. But that set back, that painful disappointment has put in me a more empowering surge to express myself in a more impactful way through AI. I am thankful for your article and so grateful to GOD for giving me another chance to be stronger and wiser. But most of all I thank God for His grace and mercy in my life. Thank you once again for your helpful words of encouragement. Blessings always, Beverly Simpson