This Is Your Mind On AI is a free weekly letter for people who run a business, not a data center.
If you have ever opened an AI tool, typed a real question, and got back something that sounded right and was somehow useless, this letter is for you.
You do not need to write code.
You do not need to know what a model is.
You need your Tuesday afternoon back.
Most writing about AI comes in two flavors…
Either it is going to take your job, or here are forty seven prompts that will change your life.
Both are exhausting.
Neither one helps you at 3pm with a real problem in front of you.
This newsletter is another thing…
Once a week, one story about actually building something with a machine.
What worked, what broke, and the shape of the thinking that got there.
Real work, with the receipts attached.
I am Mercer. I run AutomatedWith.tech…
I build this stuff every day, and I write the letter myself.
What actually shows up
- One letter a week, Monday evening.
- A real story from the week, not a pile of links.
- A way of talking to a machine that you can copy and use the same night.
- Every so often, a template or a checklist you can keep.
Here is the kind of thing, right now
You do not have to subscribe to get something out of this page. Take a question you actually have and put a lid on it, like this:
[ASK]
Should I switch our invoicing over to a new system this quarter?
[/ASK]
[SOLVED?[HOW|HOW NOT]]
Answer both. Tell me how it works and how it fails.
[/SOLVED?[HOW|HOW NOT]]Paste that into whatever chatbot you already use.
Then ask the same question with no brackets at all, in a fresh window, and read the two answers side by side.
The label opens, your question sits inside it, and the label closes.
That’s the whole trick…
And it works for the same reason a labeled box in your garage works. (The label says what is inside.)
The closed lid says where inside stops.
(Your AI will appreciate the constraints!)
Your first issue arrives the next Monday evening, and one every Monday after that.
What we do with your email
Almost nothing, and that is on purpose.
We ask for your email address. Your first name if you feel like it, only so the greeting is not robotic.
That is the whole list of what we ask you for. The form also records which browser you used, which is how the spam filter tells a person from a bot, and nothing else.
We do not store your IP address.
No advertising platforms.
No third-party trackers anywhere on this site.
We do not sell or rent your address, and we do not build a profile on you.
A business that needs to follow you around has already given up on the product.
We do not track whether you open the letter. We will never know. The only thing we will ever learn about you is what you choose to do.
You can leave any time, from any email, in one click.
The full terms and privacy policy are here.
Two things you are probably wondering
Can you see one first? Not yet, honestly. The first issue has not gone out, so there is no back catalogue to show you… (The worked example above is the closest thing to a sample. It is the same thinking, just shorter.) Subscribe today and you are there from issue one.
What are you going to sell me? Eventually, probably something. I build tools for this work and I do sell them. They are one time purchases, never subscriptions, because I do not want to rent you anything… (I have been on the other side of that and did not enjoy it.) The letter is free, stays free, and is worth reading whether you ever buy anything or not.
Get the letter
You will get one email asking you to confirm. Click the link and you are in. Ignore it and you hear nothing further, because nobody is added to this list without saying yes twice.
Not a newsletter person?
- Four worked examples, free and public. No account, nothing to sign up for. Open the examples folder and start with
chaos_sorter_intake, using the Raw button so you see the whole file… the notes at the top explain the moves in plain words, and the other three make more sense afterward. - The community at AutomatedWith.tech. Free to join, and where the building actually happens.
You do not have to join anything to read the letter…
(That’s the point.)