I’ve long been a digital hoarder of sorts, an affliction I’ve written about before. The full explanation for why I hang on to data is likely more nuanced than I even understand, but the simple rationale I use is that knowledge is power and you never know when you will need a certain tidbit of information. Over the years I’ve collected a trove of industry data that includes CMO reports, salary and spend surveys, marketing trends, and much more.

When AI first came out I was very excited by the idea that I could dump new reports in and quickly get a summary out. Figuring that if there was something I wanted to dive deeper into I could discern that from the summary and then read the relevant part of the report. Great in theory but terrible in practice.

What I found after trying this for a while was that my personal knowledge as a subject matter expert was getting thinner. By relying heavily on AI, I couldn’t converse as deeply about a subject.

My solve was a procedural change. I went back to reading the reports, normally skimming headlines and then fully reading. I ingest interesting documents into my Notion workspace and use Notion AI to summarize and categorize, but then I also add my own notes.

Before I’d blindly search my workspace to see if there was a stat on X topic. Now I know the stat exists and the general context, but just need help locating which document it is in. My notes already exist, and the very act of writing those notes helps me not only remember the subject matter better, but also speak extemporaneously without needing to ask an agent.

Offloading critical thinking can feel like a productivity gain. In reality it is a knowledge killer.

If this hit home with you please reply and let me know. I read every response.

Until next time,

Tobias