Hey all-

Welcome back to Studio Notes. Dealing with blocks, pivots, and setbacks is one of the aspects of creativity that I find most interesting… probably because it’s a space I’m intimately familiar with. No matter how smoothly the ideas flow one day, it’s guaranteed that I will have a slow day again at some point. And despite the wealth of evidence that it’s part of the process, I will still find a way to be completely frustrated. It’s a cycle, and one of the many reasons why therapy should be more affordable. But that’s a separate topic.

If it isn’t clear yet, this week was one of those “character building” stretches. A combination of unexpected client work and everyday life stuff threw off the week from the beginning, and I’ve been clawing back to baseline ever since. But thanks to some well-timed conversations and reading, I’ve managed to find the silver lining. Let’s get to it!

This Week's Focus

“Best laid plans” feels like the theme of the week. Looking back, I was targeting a round of client interviews and prep for my 1-week MVP. I actually made some progress on both of those, but factors outside of my control meant it looked more like 5-10% progress instead of the 25-30% I was hoping for. The rest of my time ended up being a lot of miscellaneous — impromptu coffees, life admin, and a VERY CHEAP trip to the vet (don’t worry, Frankie’s fine).

Key Insight: AI-Assisted MVP Planning

When I initially conceived the 1-Week MVP idea, I envisioned a simple Sudoku app. It seemed perfect: a straightforward test case for my development stack, easy to execute, and a nice nod to Wordle's success story. But over a long-overdue coffee with an entrepreneur friend, those plans evaporated. He shared a need for a simple image processing app that not only fit my criteria but came with a potential user for feedback. Sign me up.

My “5% progress” this week was working with Claude to put together my prototyping plan. One of the common misconceptions of first-time AI users is that it’s an easy button: you ask for a thing and it perfectly produces that thing. The truth is, to really get the value of AI you need to think about it as hyper-capable intern who needs clear, specific directions. The key is to break everything down into manageable chunks. One of my most-used techniques is involving the AI in creating those chunks by having it write a project outline first. Here’s how I approached the app project with Claude:

• Ask for an outline with unknowns: I outlined the basic user flow for Claude, and then asked it to sketch the potential architecture and highlight technical risks. This gave me the shape of the project and identified the spaces that could be the stickiest.
• Ask for a revised outline to mitigate the unknowns: Once I had the output from #1, I asked for starting points to de-risk those concepts and for a revised architecture that was flexible enough to allow easy testing of the riskiest parts.
• Revise the outline with any key constraints: The final piece was asking for a 3.5-day prototyping plan (always include buffer). By adding in a tight time constraint, I forced Claude to think lean, putting together a focused plan that would allow me to get to working software more quickly.

The output of this is a basic roadmap for how I’m going to work with Claude on the project. It allows me to better manager my AI collaborator and my time. What I love about this approach is how it scales to many different types of projects, even beyond software development. More to come as I dig into my build.

From the Library: Soft Ambition

I’m an avid reader of The Creative Independent, and yesterday’s interview with Nicole Antoinette gave me one of my new favorite terms: “soft ambition”. You should go read it yourself, but I loved Nicole’s very pragmatic way of thinking about what’s enough. Especially in tech, it’s easy to believe that the only way to be ambitious is by trying to build a unicorn and be the next Musk or Bezos. Nicole’s thoughts were a nice reminder that ambition is a much simpler idea, attainable by anyone: you just have to want to thrive.

Next Week

I'm wrapping up work next week before heading off on our annual summer getaway to Maine. My plan is to earn my daily hammock naps by:

• Checking off my writing goals: I’m trying to create a steady writing rhythm, and want to get enough written that I can really unplug in New England.
• Coding the 1-week MVP: now that I have my app and my plan, I’m aiming to take advantage of a lighter consulting week by hammering out this initial prototype.

Hope you enjoyed this week's musings — have a great weekend!