Getting started with AI is easier than you think
Think of your AI as more of a thinking partner than an assistant and you might be surprised what you unlock.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by AI. To not know where to start or how to use it to augment and accelerate your work.
AI is overwhelming. But getting started is easy.
Whether you’re using Claude Code or Codex or Pi or Opencode or something else, just open a session and type “I don’t know where to get started with AI. Tell me what I need to know and walk me through it step by step.”
Ask it questions. Treat it like an infinitely-patient thinking partner.
It’s almost easier and more intuitive when you use AI more rather than less. And it’s more broadly helpful to think of it as a thinking partner than an assistant. Brainstorm. Ideate. Research. Muse.
If you have multiple streams of work or ideas, build a habit of running parallel sessions in separate tabs or workspaces. Think of them as separate topics or channels—just how you’d communicate with your team or other people.
Try to develop your own patterns of communication to help unlock the true reasoning power of your AI rather than becoming paralyzed by trying to produce something.
To unlock more of AI’s reasoning power, some of the prompts I use in addition to “verbifying nouns” are finishing my instructions with…
- Take your time.
- Go wide and then deep.
- Cast an IDEO design thinking lens over this.
- How might [x expert] or [y deep thinker] or [z thought leader] approach this?
- Assemble a team to figure this out.
- Give me the TLDR for Dummies.
- Interview me one question at a time.
- Explain step by step.
- Think through this.
- Focus on the patterns and principles.
- Think through it and then just do what’s best.
- Use your superpowers.
- Ideate and brainstorm and prototype first.
- Challenge me with alternative points of view.
- Diverge before you converge.
- Review and test and QA as you go.
- Test and validate your assumptions.
- Triple-check your work.
- Ensure every claim is backed by facts.
- Give me clickable links to all references and sources.
The point is. Just start. Treat your AI “agents” as colleagues.
Use them more not less—for everything.
Create a rhythm of opening a chat for every thought stream or project or idea or big-picture exploration.
Think of your AI as more of a thinking partner than an assistant and you might be surprised what you unlock.
And, tinker with abandon.