Yesterday, I wrote about something I think we’ll be talking about a lot more as AI becomes embedded in our everyday lives: the more technology we have available, the more important the human side of business becomes. People still want to know who they’re buying from. They want behind-the-scenes stories, conversations, opinions, mistakes, experiments, and personalities. They want the social part of social media.
So if I’m arguing that we need more humanity in our businesses, why am I also such a big proponent of AI? Because I’m not particularly interested in using AI to replace myself. I’m interested in using it to remove some of the friction that keeps me from doing the things I’m actually good at.
Over the past year, I’ve started moving beyond simply asking ChatGPT questions or having it help me brainstorm. I’ve been experimenting with creating small AI-powered tools designed around specific problems in my own life and business. Three have become particularly useful: my Content Studio, my Deal Discovery Desk, and something I call The Next Right Thing.
They solve three very different problems, but they’re built around the same philosophy: instead of changing the way I work to accommodate another piece of software, I’m trying to make technology accommodate the way I actually work. I even keep these tools as mobile widgets on my phone’s home screen so I can get to them immediately. I don’t want to remember where I saved something, navigate through five folders, or hunt through old conversations. If I have an idea, need direction, or want to check something, I want the tool right there. That seemingly small detail matters more than you might think.
The Content Studio: One Place for the Ideas Flying Around My Brain
My biggest problem has never been coming up with ideas. It’s figuring out what to do with all of them.
Running The Oubaitori Edit means I’m constantly noticing potential articles, products, trends, small businesses, creators, affiliate opportunities, interview subjects, and things I want to research later. I might be thinking about a holiday gift guide in September while simultaneously finding a local business I want to feature next spring and coming up with an article idea that needs to run next Tuesday.
For a long time, those ideas ended up everywhere: notes, spreadsheets, browser tabs, screenshots, social media saves, random documents, ChatGPT conversations, and pieces of paper. Eventually, the organizational system itself becomes another thing you have to manage.
So I created my Content Studio. The purpose isn’t to have AI churn out endless generic content. It’s to give my ideas somewhere to go.
My Content Studio helps me organize my editorial calendar, future article ideas, affiliate content, products I may want to feature, potential interview subjects, small businesses I’d like to highlight, and longer-term projects. I’ve even built categories around the kinds of people and businesses I want to feature, from resellers and secondhand businesses to entrepreneurs, local businesses, product-based brands, mobile businesses, and future wedding-related features.
Instead of an idea disappearing because I don’t have time to act on it immediately, I can capture it and come back to it when it makes sense. AI isn’t replacing the creative process. It’s helping me hold onto it.
The Deal Discovery Desk: Let the Computer Dig Through the Pile
Affiliate marketing creates a completely different problem. Retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and eBay offer an enormous number of products and deals. Technically, I could spend hours digging through them all. But that’s not actually the valuable part of what I do. The valuable part is deciding what’s relevant to the people who follow The Oubaitori Edit. That’s curation.
So I created a Deal Discovery Desk to help with the first part of the process: discovery and filtering. Instead of manually wading through an overwhelming number of options, the tool surfaces potential deals for me to review. I can then review the actual product, decide whether it fits my audience, and choose whether I genuinely want to share it.
That distinction matters. I don’t want an automated system blindly publishing whatever happens to be discounted that day. That would remove the exact thing I’m building my business around: editorial judgment. I want technology doing the digging. I want the human doing the deciding. The Deal Discovery Desk helps separate those two jobs.
The Next Right Thing: When Knowing What to Do Isn’t the Problem
The third tool has very little to do with content marketing and everything to do with my brain. I have ADHD, and executive functioning can sometimes turn a perfectly reasonable list of things I need to accomplish into something that feels completely unreasonable.
It’s not necessarily that I don’t know what needs to be done. Sometimes I know too many things that need to be done: answer this email, finish the article, make the appointment, update the website, pick up something for the kids, research a product, do the laundry, schedule the post, clean the kitchen, and remember the thing I suddenly remembered while trying to do the other thing. When everything feels important, figuring out where to begin can become its own task.
So I created The Next Right Thing. The concept is intentionally simple. Instead of giving me another giant productivity dashboard filled with everything I haven’t accomplished yet, the tool helps me focus on what I should do next.
It can help me prioritize tasks and break something overwhelming into a manageable next action. I’ve also added a timer function because sometimes it’s easier to start when I’m not telling myself I need to “finish the entire project.” I just need to work on the next piece for a defined amount of time.
For someone with executive-function challenges, reducing the number of decisions required to begin can be surprisingly powerful. And this is where I think personalized AI becomes much more interesting than another chatbot.
You Can Build AI Around Your Problems, Too
My Content Studio isn’t required. You need whatever your version of the Content Studio is.
That’s one of the biggest ideas I want small business owners to understand about AI. Don’t begin by asking, “What AI tools should I be using?” Begin by asking, “Where do I repeatedly get stuck?” That’s a much better question.
Maybe you’re a candle maker who spends hours tracking fragrances, seasonal launches, customer requests, and content ideas. You could create an AI-assisted Launch Planner that helps organize product ideas by season, tracks customer requests, and turns the information you’ve already collected into a realistic launch checklist.
Maybe you own a bakery, and customers repeatedly ask the same questions about ordering deadlines, ingredients, pickup times, and customization. You could create an internal Customer Question Assistant that organizes frequently asked questions and helps you quickly prepare consistent responses, while leaving unusual or sensitive questions for you to handle personally.
A reseller could build a Sourcing Research Desk that organizes brands, categories, terminology, and research questions they want to investigate before sourcing. Instead of AI telling them what to buy, it could help structure the research they need to make better buying decisions themselves.
A photographer might create a Client Prep Assistant that organizes the repetitive information clients need before a session: clothing suggestions, timelines, location preparation, what to bring, and common questions. A wedding planner could build a Vendor Coordination Assistant that organizes deadlines, outstanding questions, and information from multiple vendors before the planner communicates with everyone.
A content creator might build an Idea Vault that takes random ideas, voice notes, or observations and sorts them into potential articles, Reels, newsletters, videos, and future series without actually creating the finished content until the creator is ready. A handmade business could create a Customer Feedback Desk that helps identify recurring themes in reviews and customer comments. If 12 customers mention the same feature, question, or problem, that’s information worth paying attention to.
Even outside of business, someone with ADHD might build their own version of The Next Right Thing based on the specific places where executive functioning creates friction in their day.
The point isn’t to copy somebody else’s AI setup. The point is to identify friction in your own life and ask whether technology can reduce it.
Start With the Annoying Stuff
If you’re wondering where to begin, pay attention to the tasks that make you think, I cannot believe I’m doing this again. That’s probably where your first useful AI tool lives.
Look for repetitive decisions, information you repeatedly search for, things you’re constantly forgetting where you saved, questions customers ask over and over, information scattered across multiple places, processes that require too many steps, or administrative tasks consuming time you’d rather spend making your product or serving your customers.
Then describe the problem to AI before asking for a solution. You don’t even need to know what the finished tool should look like. You can say something like:
“I run a small handmade jewelry business. Constantly, I lose track of customer requests, seasonal product ideas, supplies I need to reorder, and content ideas. I don’t want another complicated project-management system. Help me design a simple tool that puts these things in one place and helps me decide what needs my attention.”
That’s considerably more useful than asking, “How can I use AI in my business?” Your problem becomes the blueprint.
From there, you can refine it. Tell AI what you like, what annoys you, what information you need immediately, what you don’t want included, and how you actually work. That’s essentially what I’ve done.
My tools didn’t appear perfectly formed. They evolved as I used them and noticed what was missing. I needed a place to keep potential interview subjects, so I added it. I needed to plan future months, so I added that. Before approving a deal, I wanted a direct link so I could inspect the product myself, so that became part of the Deal Desk. I needed a timer because getting started is part of my problem, so we added one to The Next Right Thing.
That’s the part of AI I’m most excited about.
AI Should Adapt to You
For years, we’ve adapted ourselves to software. When we buy a productivity app, we learn its system. We download the planner and follow its method. We create the spreadsheet and reorganize our workflow around its columns.
AI introduces the possibility of reversing that relationship. Instead of asking, “How am I supposed to use this software?” we can increasingly ask, “How would software need to work for me?”
That doesn’t mean every idea requires an elaborate custom application. Sometimes your AI tool might simply be a carefully designed ChatGPT conversation or a reusable prompt. Sometimes it might evolve into a custom GPT, dashboard, shortcut, widget, or more sophisticated application.
Start with the problem, not the technology. Then keep the human where the human matters.
AI can organize the ideas, but you decide which ones deserve to become something. Let AI surface potential products, but you decide which ones are worth recommending. Let AI help prioritize the task list, but you decide what kind of life and business you’re trying to build. Let AI handle repetitive work where it makes sense so you have more capacity for conversations, craftsmanship, customer service, creativity, and relationships.
Yesterday, I wrote that I don’t want AI to replace the human element of my business. I want AI to help me protect it. My Content Studio, Deal Discovery Desk, and Next Right Thing are what that philosophy looks like in practice. They’re not there to become me. They’re there to make it a little easier for me to actually show up as myself.
And if you’re wondering how AI could help your own business, maybe don’t start by asking what it can create for you. Ask yourself a different question:
What keeps getting in the way of the work only I can do?
Your answer might be the beginning of the most useful AI tool you haven’t built
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