My Blender

If you want to make a smoothie, the first thing you need is ingredients. Maybe some yogurt. Maybe a liquid. Some fruit — preferably frozen if you don’t want to use ice cubes.

Then you’re going to need a blender.

The important thing about the blender is that you can’t make a smoothie by holding all those ingredients in your hands, tossing them into the air, and hoping something magical happens. The ingredients matter, but something has to bring them together.

You need the blender.

That’s how I think about AI.

AI is my blender.

Every week I have a long list of things I need to accomplish: meetings, emails, IEPs, projects, personal goals, family commitments, creative work. On their own, they’re just a pile of ingredients.

I take that list, drop it into my favorite AI platform, and ask it to organize everything into a weekly plan. Sometimes I ask it to add Bible verses. Sometimes encouraging quotes. Sometimes reflection questions or reminders to breathe, take a walk, drink water, take care of myself.

The AI isn’t doing my work.

It’s helping me organize my work.

Just as a blender doesn’t grow the fruit, buy the yogurt, or decide what kind of smoothie you want — AI doesn’t replace the thinking, the experience, the judgment, or the effort. It simply helps bring the ingredients together faster and more efficiently.

When I use AI, I don’t see a machine that’s going to take over the world.

I see a blender sitting on my kitchen counter.

A tool.

A useful one.

And like any tool, its value comes from the person using it — and the ingredients they bring to the table

What "ingredients" do you bring to your work that no AI could ever supply — and how might a tool like AI help you finally put them all together?