Daily Log

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Day 37

November 15, 2024

  • Writing
    • Ideated and wrote an outline for next Wednesday’s essay.
  • Website
    • Updated the projects section to become ‘Artifacts’
    • Made a variety of updates to incorporate ‘Artifacts’
    • Revised the three existing artifacts
    • Added two new artifacts
    • Updated README & home page body copy
•••

Day 36

November 14, 2024

  • Case Study
    • Revised my draft of GPT User Guide case study into a newsletter appropriate format titled “Teaching AI to Document Itself.” Scheduled it to publish this Sunday.
  • Strategy
    • Spent some time going over case study ideas and companion essays for the next 6 weeks.
    • Set up basics for social media atomization
  • Management
    • Updated Notion tasks to reflect upcoming work
•••

Day 35

November 13, 2024

  • Prompt Engineering
    • Worked on a new version of my Claude atomic essay atomizer - takes my complete essay and breaks it down into micro essays to share on social media.
  • Discovery
    • Started audit of Claude interface. Took a bunch of screenshots to help me analyze and start to recreate design in Figma.
    • Extended ideation on a couple of ideas for upcoming case studies
•••

Day 34

November 12, 2024

  • Writing
    • Wrote tomorrow’s newsletter article: “The Inconvenient Truth About AI and Jobs”
  • Strategy
    • Creating a plan for how to manage weekly work
    • Outlined case study projects and strategic articles for the next couple of weeks
  • Prompt Engineering
    • Created a new version of my Claude Editor prompt to assist with revising my essay drafts
•••

Day 33

November 11, 2024

  • Portfolio
    • Discovered that the job I was prepping materials for was no longer hiring
    • Circled back to framing my experience as product designer
    • Refreshed my AI job search Claude Project with updated context materials
    • Took a break after working through the weekend
•••

Day 32

November 10, 2024

  • Portfolio
    • Drafted Anthropic personal note answering “Why Anthropic?”
    • Drafted 90 second video script introducing myself
    • Drafted documentation site case study
    • Created visual assets for docs site case study
    • Replace end post carousel with next/previous post links
    • Revised publishing overview
  • Docs Site
    • Updated top level object names: ‘prompting’ -> ‘prompt patterns’, ’library’ -> ‘resources’
•••

Day 31

November 9, 2024

  • Newsletter
    • Wrote tomorrow’s newsletter
    • Created feature image for it with Midjourney
  • Projects
    • Started working on my third AI case study, developing this documentation site.
•••

Day 30

November 8, 2024

  • Projects
    • Added case study: Developing GPT User Guides Through Model Introspection
      • Rewrote the earlier draft
      • Created the visuals: 2 designs, 2 screen recordings, 1 Figma prototype
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Day 29

November 7, 2024

  • Projects
    • Continued work on portfolio website
      • Built new featured article component
      • Updated list of popular articles
      • Revised 3 design project case studies
    • Created Claude project to review my application materials based on the job description
    • Used Midjourney to create more feature images for newsletter articles in a consistent brand style
•••

Day 28

November 6, 2024

  • Projects
    • Continued work in Framer on my portfolio website
      • Built new featured project component
      • Created new visual assets for use in the project section
      • Updated experience page
      • Updated 1-page PDF resume to align with experience page
•••

Day 27

November 5, 2024

  • Projects
    • Extensive work in Framer on my portfolio website
      • Updated popular articles section
      • Lots of copy refinements
      • Career bullet points section
•••

Day 26

November 4, 2024

  • Projects
    • Began development of a new portfolio presentation
    • Creating two versions of the presentation:
      • A 10-minute video overview
      • An extended 30-45 minute version for job interviews
    • Reframing my skills to target adjacent industry opportunities
    • Planning to use this presentation content to update my portfolio website
•••

Day 25

November 3, 2024

  • Website & Coding
    • Added UA logo and favicons to the site
    • Added UA font (Space Grotesk)
    • Fixed link colors in blog list
    • Added Substack subscription iFrame on the homepage
    • Removed page status (for now)
    • Refactored page structure to surface main sections at the top level
    • Added my GPT user guides case study to Projects
    • Moved the theme toggle from the footer to the navbar
•••

Day 24

November 2, 2024

  • Learning
    • Finished Vanderbilt Prompt Engineering course 🎉
  • Project
    • Started a case study tenatively titled: Understanding Marketplace GPTs - Using Model Introspection to Create Quick-Start Guides
    • Includes two prompts: one diagnostic prompt to understand the GPT, one prompt to generate the user quick-start guide
  • Midjourney
    • Started to work on refining the art style for my newsletter feature images
•••

Day 23

November 1, 2024

  • Content
    • Wrote and scheduled post for next Wednesday
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Day 22

October 31, 2024

  • Content
    • Wrote and scheduled post for Sunday
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Day 21

October 30, 2024

  • Content
    • Came up with a concept that will drive both of next week’s articles
    • It also sets the stage for future weekly projects
  • Analysis
    • Started analyzing the prompt libraries of both OpenAI and Anthropic
    • Consolidated them into a spreadsheet & started analyzing with ChatGPT
    • Had to process these by hand which sucked but gave me more time to actually review each one
•••

Day 20

October 29, 2024

  • Coding
    • Created a Python script to convert the 150+ HTML files in my Substack account into markdown.
    • The idea is to gather and process my catalog so that I can a) have my full archive in markdown 2) combine all my articles as a knowledge base to use in a Claude Project to assist with writing.
  • Management
    • Substantial rework of my tasks from Apple Reminders into Notion
    • Restructured my Notion to capture content focused on AI and archived old stuff
  • Learning
    • Began listening to Sapiens
•••

Day 19

October 28, 2024

  • Content
    • Wrote this week’s Midweek Muse.
    • Signed up for Midjourney to begin creating feature images for articles.
  • Prompt Development
    • Worked through revisions of my AI jam session prompt to share with the community.
    • Tested prompt variations by interviewing myself on topics:
      • Fleeting queries vs. enduring queries
      • AI’s impact on the future of work
  • Coding
    • Using ChatGPT, created a Python script that can retrieve the captions from a YouTube video, process it to extract the text, and summarize it.
  • Learning
    • Listened to podcast between Yuval Noah Harari and Rich Roll, talking about the future of AI.
    • Borrowed Sapiens from the library to read more from Yuval Noah Harari. Saved his new book “Nexus” to read soon.
•••

Day 18

October 27, 2024

  • Content
    • Finished revisions and published this week’s Dispatch.
  • Life
    • Chilled out and relaxed after a busy wedding weekend!
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Day 17

October 26, 2024

  • Content
    • Revisions to this week’s Dispatch article.
  • Life
    • Friend’s wedding day!
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Day 16

October 25, 2024

  • Website
    • Added a new status-badge shortcode to display the status of a page.
    • Refactored links in Hugo to use simpler syntax.
  • Content
    • Created concept glossary section of the website.
    • Added first drafts of 16 concepts.
  • Community
    • Talked with Chase Adams about all things creativity and AI.
  • Life
    • Friend’s wedding rehearsal day!
•••

Day 15

October 24, 2024

  • Writing
    • Drafted The Dispatch article for this Sunday.
      • Identified a couple of resources I want to add to the site before publication.
    • Drafted The Muse article for next Wednesday.
      • Used my custom GPT prompt to guide a 45 minute conversation with the model.
        • I picked the topic and it interviewed me while I took a walk around the neighborhood.
      • I had the model synthesize my spoken ideas into a couple of article ideas.
      • I picked one that seemed most aligned with next week’s theme.
      • I had the model write an outline and then a rough draft using my language.
      • I saved the draft and started thinking about how I’ll edit it.
•••

Day 14

October 23, 2024

  • Learning
    • Prompt engineering course: Module 4 exercises
      • Created a few-shot prompt: Designing a personalized fitness plan for a busy executive
        • Tried writing this from scratch without model input. Performed okay. Still better to collaborate on prompt design with the model.
      • Created a multi-step prompt: Organizing a multi-leg international trip for a family of four
        • An interesting result from this one: I instructed the model to emulate a travel agent, do an initial consultation with me to gather info and then go about its work planning the trip. After gathering the info, the model replied that it would get back to me in 2-3 business days, emulating the kind of workflow it expected from that persona (despite its ability to execute the task immediately). An interesting thing to note for future prompt refinement: the balance between leaning into a persona vs. maintaining the model’s awareness of its machine powers.
  • Ideation
    • Explored a couple of concepts in more depth:
      • Meta-prompting
      • Recursion as a property of machine growth vs. human growth
      • “How might we…” as a prompting pattern
  • Life
    • Shorter work day today as I was attended pre-wedding festivities.
•••

Day 13

October 22, 2024

•••

Day 12

October 21, 2024

  • Content:
    • Worked on social media posts sharing what I did/learned last week
    • Started following more AI accounts on X to keep my finger on the pulse better
  • Website:
    • Added people directory with first entry
    • Revising the resource catalog.
      • Added a newsletter page
      • Reorganized structure
      • Moved resources list files into their own directories to be able to collect notes and links in one place.
      • Added first video with notes to the videos directory. Linked to the associated person.
•••

Day 11

October 20, 2024

  • Content:
    • Created the first draft of the Idea Incubator custom GPT
  • Coding:
    • Added a Projects page to the website
    • Added the Idea Incubator as a subpage to the Projects page
    • Created a custom shortcode to embed prompt markdown files in project pages
•••

Day 10

October 19, 2024

  • Content:
    • Made final revisions to Dispatch 1.
    • Added a section to The Dispatch to share things I made that week.
    • Created a new About page for Substack
    • Updated Buy Me a Coffee page
  • Coding:
    • Lots of work to configure and customize the Hugo theme
    • Had to fork the theme from Github as a submodule to make the customizations I wanted
•••

Day 9

October 18, 2024

  • Coding:
    • Migrated website to use Hugo, Hextra theme, and my custom subdomain.
    • Pushed live with Github Pages. 🎉
  • Mgmt:
    • Made kanban boards to track work on UA website, UA content, UA management.
    • Created backlog of tasks across focus areas
•••

Day 8

October 17, 2024

  • Community: Walk and talk around silver lake reservoir
  • Content: Went through all my YouTube playlists and cleaned them up to make it easier to find AI learning, AI commentary, Creativity, etc…
  • Coding:
    • Spent a couple of hours trying to resolve bugs coming from Jekyll and the theme I picked.
    • It became clear that that solution wasn’t going to give me what I wanted, so I bailed on that direction. Started investigating another option, Hugo.
    • Picked a Hugo theme, and outlined steps to migrate, to pick up tomorrow.
•••

Day 7

October 16, 2024

  • Writing: Wrote a short letter to subscribers to communicate the updated cadence of the newsletter and the focus on exploring AI and emerging technologies.
  • Coding:
    • Lots of work in Cursor AI - learning the product and how AI is implemented in the editor
    • Worked on setting up this repo as a Jekyll site
    • Integrated the just_the_docs theme
    • Refactored the content into collections
•••

Day 6

October 15, 2024

  • Learning: Attended LA tech week event on AI and creativity at The Kinn, Venice
  • Writing: Used custom Dispatch GPT for self-interview and newsletter draft
  • Tools & Technology: Installed and started using Cursor for coding
•••

Day 5

October 14, 2024

  • AI/ML:
    • Created new weekly newsletter format using ChatGPT
    • Developed custom GPT for weekly self-interviews
  • Courses & Education: Completed Vanderbilt prompt engineering course module 3
  • Content Creation: Created and shared 3-min video on ChatGPT memory to Twitter
  • Reading: Jack Clark’s newsletter #387
  • Coding: Completed day 5 of Replit 100 days of Python
•••

Day 4

October 13, 2024

  • Reading: Read Vandy research paper on prompt patterns
  • Writing: Created markdown template for capturing key info from each pattern, tailored for creative professionals
  • Projects:
    • Set up Github repo: Added Global README, Pattern README, License
    • Created 15 pattern markdown guides based on the Vandy research paper
  • Courses & Education: Completed module 2 of Vanderbilt prompt engineering course
  • Networking: Sent LinkedIn connection invite to course instructor
•••

Day 3

October 12, 2024

  • Courses & Education: Watched main lessons for module 2 of Vanderbilt prompt engineering course
  • Reading: Started reading assigned article, took detailed notes
  • Writing: Focused on writing weekly article for Unknown Arts
  • Coding: Did not code today
•••

Day 2

October 11, 2024

  • Courses & Education: Started first lesson of Vanderbilt prompt engineering course
  • Coding: Completed Lessons 3 and 4 of Replit 100 Days of Code
  • Tools & Technology: Installed Anki, added cards for key AI terminology
  • Ideas & Brainstorming: Brainstormed on understanding LLM dimensionality for creatives
•••

Day 1

October 10, 2024

  • Coding: Completed Lessons 1 and 2 of Replit 100 Days of Code
  • Tools & Technology:
    • Set up local dev environment:
      • Installed Anaconda and Jupyter Lab
      • Set up Github repo:
        • Created and cloned repo
        • Added README and pushed to main
        • Configured credentials (used Personal Access Token from Github account)
      • Installed and enabled JupyterLab Git Extension