Here’s a confession: I’ve been using AI tools for a couple of years now, and it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I actually understood the difference between a “skill” and “project instructions.” I’d been using Notion, Claude, and ChatGPT interchangeably, depending on the day and whatever I’d already hit my limit on — and I genuinely thought I had a system. I didn’t. I had a pile of context, some of it duplicated, some of it half-finished, and no real logic for what belonged where.

The thing that forced the question was Notion relaunching Skills 2.0 — you can now @-tag a skill in Notion the same way you already can in Claude. And for the first time, I sat there thinking: wait, what actually goes in a skill versus a project instructions page? If we’re all new to this AI space — and we are, nobody taught us this in school — that’s a completely normal thing not to know. So I spent some time figuring it out, and here’s what I landed on

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There are really four types of AI instructions

1. Skills. A skill is an action item — something the AI “has” and can just do. The whole point of a skill is that it’s deliberately low on context. You’re not re-explaining yourself every time; you’re tagging something and giving it a little bit of extra detail, and it runs. Think “write a YouTube description” or “create a LinkedIn post.” Before I turn something into a skill, I ask myself: Will I use this more than once? Is there a repeatable process here? Should the output be consistent every time? Does it need defined inputs, steps, or boundaries? If yes to most of those — it’s a skill.

2. Project instructions. This is general context for a larger project — strategy, preferences, rules, the stuff that helps AI understand a whole world before it tries to help you. My brand strategy is project instructions. So is my health context, so AI understands my situation before I ask it something. So is client context — everything a client wants, how they like things done. Project instructions are “understand this before you help me,” not “go do this thing.”

3. Prompts. No context, no project, nothing set up in advance — just a question, the way most people (I’d guess 80%) actually use AI, like a slightly smarter search engine. “Summarize this page.” “Give me five ideas for this.” Totally fine — just short-term and only as good as what you type in that moment.

4. Global instructions. This is platform-wide — how you want your AI to sound or behave across every single chat, not just one project. Friendly and warm, or blunt and fact-only, whatever you prefer. It’s less about any one task and more about tone.

The mistake I was actually making

Here’s my own example. I had a “YouTube project instructions” page — but the actual thing I do every week is a skill: export the transcript, feed it to AI, and have it write me a description, tags, and timestamps that are optimized for YouTube. That’s a repeatable action with a defined input and a defined output. It’s a skill. My actual project instructions for YouTube would be the context about my channel — my brand, my audience, my voice — not the “go do this specific task” part.

Realizing I’d been treating almost everything as project instructions was the real “aha” moment. And once I saw it, I did something a little meta: I asked Notion AI to look through my entire project instructions database and tell me which entries were actually skills — then move all of them into a new skills database. It did it. That one sort saved me from having to manually re-sort months of half-organized pages.

What actually goes in a skill

If you’re building your first one, here’s the checklist I use: a clear name (not a clever one — I started with clever names and could never remember what they meant later), a short description of what it does, a category, a trigger (what prompt or automation sets it off), the required input, the expected output, and boundaries — what it should not do. That last one matters more than it sounds; there are skills where I’m very specific about boundaries because otherwise the AI will happily go do the thing I didn’t want. You can also link a skill back to related project instructions — mine will say “always reference my 2026 brand strategy” — so it inherits extra context without you having to restate it.

Keeping it consistent when you use more than one tool

If you only use one AI platform, none of this matters as much — just use that one. But if you’re like me and genuinely switch between Notion, Claude, and ChatGPT depending on the day (sometimes I’m just already in one, sometimes I’ve hit a limit), you need one source of truth. Mine is Notion — I keep a master Projects database, a Project Instructions database, and a Skills database there, and when I’m setting something up fresh in Claude or ChatGPT, I copy it over from Notion. That solves the “wait, is this saved somewhere, or did I just type it into a chat and lose it” problem for good.

One more way to see the split: project instructions might be “I’m gluten-free and dairy-free, here’s my health context” — general, ongoing information. A skill is “when I photograph a grocery receipt, automatically add those items to my Notion grocery list as purchased” — a specific, repeatable action. Same topic, two completely different jobs.

The one thing to do today

You don’t need to rebuild your entire AI setup this week. Just look at whatever you’ve already got sitting in a Claude project, a ChatGPT custom GPT, or a Notion page, and ask the four skill-test questions: Will I use this more than once? Is it repeatable? Should the output be consistent? Does it need clear inputs and boundaries? If yes — pull it out and make it its own skill. Everything else — the context, the strategy, the “who I am and what I do” — stays as project instructions. That’s it. That’s the whole sort.

If you want the running list of everything I cover here plus more AI and Notion tips every week, that’s what my Substack, Red Thread Toolbox, is for — I’d love to have you there.

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I’ve been building websites since high school. Web design class, more classes in college, over a decade running my own business, always my own designer — WordPress, Squarespace, FGFunnels, now Webflow. I’ve audited other people’s sites. I know the structure, the SEO, the whole checklist.

And I never once felt like a real designer.

It was a skill I’d learned, not one I actually had. So for years, my website sat there, a little disorganized, a little dated, doing fine but never great. I knew it needed work. I just never had the bandwidth to sit down and actually do it.

Then two things happened at once: Webflow launched an MCP that lets AI tools edit directly inside the platform — no bridge, no plugin, no exporting code back and forth — and I realized with ChatGPT Pro, it now has a browser feature that lets it actually see your site while it works on it.

Note: I’d tried this exact idea with Claude first. It didn’t click. Still felt clunky, and without a browser view I was basically working blind. ChatGPT, on the other hand, blew me away. I’m not saying this to pick a fight between AI tools — I use both for different things — but for this specific job, watching my own website update live in a browser tab while I talked through changes in plain English was a different experience entirely.

The result: my whole website, redesigned, in one afternoon.

Not a metaphorical afternoon. An actual one. I went page by page and said things like “redo this page, I hate it” and “this looks too much like the last one, make it more interesting” and “this is the money page, make it a no-brainer.” Not exactly polished prompts. It didn’t matter. It got the job done.

What you actually need

Just two things: a Webflow account (I pay about $18/month) and a ChatGPT Pro account ($20/month). That’s it. No code. I’d been trained for years on what a website needs — I just never had to be the one implementing all of it pixel by pixel. This time, I described it and it built it.

Note: Some people may ask “will this work for my website?” I have no clue if Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix, etc… has this available. I don’t use those anymore so look into whether or not you can connect to Chatgpt or use the browser options.

One thing worth doing before you start: set up a project inside ChatGPT with your brand colors, fonts, and general look. That’s what kept every page consistent instead of feeling like six different designers touched my site. Skip this step and you’ll notice the drift.

What it actually did

• Full SEO and accessibility audits, then fixed what it found

• Wrote my privacy policy and terms and conditions pages (both of which you need and both of which I’d been avoiding)

• Pulled real photos from my own asset library — including headshots — instead of generic stock

• Rebuilt my main menu, which had ballooned into an overwhelming mess, into a handful of clear options

• Caught that my mobile menu was broken and fixed it — something I wouldn’t have noticed until a client mentioned it

• Added consistency across every page instead of the patchwork it used to be

The part that actually matters

Since this went live — and it’s been live less than a week — my booked calls have gone up. My conversion rate is the best it’s ever been. Before, I genuinely didn’t know what I was doing and the site looked it. Now I want to send people there.

Is it perfect? No. It’s a first draft I liked enough to publish, and I’m still tweaking things I don’t love. Thrivecart still doesn’t integrate with any of this, so that piece stayed manual. And I burned through a lot of ChatGPT’s usage limit doing this in one sitting — worth knowing before you plan to redesign your entire site in a single afternoon like I did.

But if you’ve been avoiding your website because you’re “not techy” or don’t know where to start: this is the system. You don’t need to be a designer. You need a tool that can see what you’re building and a clear enough sense of what you want to say yes and no to what it shows you.

If you want the full breakdown — the actual prompts I used, the audit process, the checklist I’d recommend before you start — book a free call and let’s talk through what your site actually needs.

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The Products That Actually Stood the Test of Time

Five years later, here’s what’s still in my daily routine

Five years ago, I made a video series called “Top 10 ADHD Products I Love and Use Every Day.” It did really well (in fact is my highest viewed video EVER), and I never went back to update it — mostly because I wanted enough time to pass to actually know if any of it mattered.

Here’s the thing about products: anyone can tell you what they just bought. Everyone’s excited about something in the first two weeks. The real test is whether it’s still in your routine a year later, three years later, five years later, without you having to think about it. That’s the story I actually want to tell today — not “here’s what’s new,” but “here’s what lasted.”

A lot has happened in five years. Some of the products I swore by back then got quietly retired. New ones earned their way into daily use. And last year, I was diagnosed with autism, too — so I’m not just ADHD anymore, I’m AuDHD, which meant re-testing some of my own “permanent” systems against a brain that works a little differently than I thought. What’s still standing after all of that is the real list. That’s what this is.

What makes these “ADHD products?” Honestly I don’t really have an answer for that. It’s more like they make my ADHD life easier. Some are straightforward, some aren’t. But for someone whose brain is kind of chaotic much of the time, these things have helped me a lot.

📅 Quick note before we dive in: I’m hosting a live workshop this Wednesday for paid subscribers called AI for the Rest of Us — noon on Wednesday. It’s a no-overwhelm look at actually using AI day-to-day. If you’re already a paid subscriber, link is below; if not, you can join above for $10

The one rule that changed everything

Before I get into the list, I want to share the filter I now run every purchase through: if I’m going to use it every single day, I invest more in it.

We tend to do the opposite — we’ll drop real money on something we use twice a year, then buy the cheapest version of the thing we touch every day. I flipped that. If it’s a daily tool, it deserves a better version, more research, and a real budget. If it’s not something I’ll use daily, I don’t need the fancy one — or I don’t need it at all. And the only way to know if something is actually a “daily tool” is to give it real time and pay attention to whether it survives.

Two more filters I use alongside that one: dopamine and aesthetics genuinely count. Something can be practical and fun to look at — it doesn’t have to be boring to be useful. And decluttering is non-negotiable. If something didn’t earn a permanent spot, it doesn’t get to just sit there taking up space — it goes.

My favorite decluttering hack: Buy Nothing groups

If you’re in the US, search Facebook for “Buy Nothing” plus your city or neighborhood name.

It’s a local group where you give away things you no longer need — no trip to Goodwill, no dealing with Facebook Marketplace messages. You post it, someone claims it, they come to your door, and it’s gone. I use it constantly, and it’s completely changed how much clutter builds up in my house.

If something didn’t work out — you bought it, spent the money, and it just isn’t right for you — let it go. That’s a sunk cost, not a reason to keep something around. Give it to someone who’ll actually use it and move on.

1. Kitchen Tools

I hate cooking. It’s harder for me now being Gluten & Dairy free. I'm very limited to foods I can eat. But I’ve found some hacks for making meals easier & storage better.

My glass air fryer is still the MVP after five years. I switched from a black one to glass for three reasons: it’s non-toxic, you can actually watch the food cook, and it’s so much easier to clean. My electric kettle (also glass) is the other daily player.

• 🫙 Glass air fryer — LINK

• 🫖 Glass electric kettle — LINK

• 🌾 Wheat straw cutting board — LINK

• Collapsible measuring cups, spoons & strainer — LINK, LINK

• Ceramic / wheat straw dishes — LINK

What fell off: my Instant Pot lives in the garage now, my blender barely gets used since I realized smoothies were basically just sugar for me, and my toaster doesn’t get much love since I don’t eat gluten or dairy.

My breakfast hasn’t changed a ton in five years, though — same 10-step oatmeal recipe every single morning (with a few swapped things), with its own dedicated cupboard. Having one less decision to make before 8am is worth a lot.

2. Health & Fitness

Mental fitness and physical fitness are linked. How well your health, your sleep is the better your ADHD is.

I love tracking things. It’s the only thing sometimes I can do when I feel like I don’t know what’s happening.

My Apple Watch is still doing the heavy lifting — I track my walks, HRV, heart rate, and step count daily, and I even built a whole system for it in Notion. One tip I picked up: turning on “outdoor walk” right before you leave and stopping it the second you’re home is what actually updates your VO2 max.

• ⌚ Apple Watch — LINK

• 🎗️ Apple Watch stretchy bands (multi-pack) — LINK

• ⚖️ Bluetooth scale — LINK

• 🩰 Pilates reformer — LINK

• 🌀 Vibration plate — LINK

• 🏃 Treadmill (with vibration plate) — LINK

• Slant board — LINK

My Bluetooth scale is another daily habit — it syncs to my phone and watch automatically and tracks weight, body fat, and water weight, not just the number on the scale. You can get a solid one for under $30.

I also log my blood work in Notion and rebuilt how I organize supplements — a stepper tray with morning on top, afternoon/dinner in the middle, and evening on the bottom, so I just work my way down the line.

I walk 7,000 steps a day (10,000 was too much and I plateaued).

A few weeks ago I bought a Pilates reformer after realizing I was spending more going to studio classes than the machine would cost — still learning how to fit it into my routine, but I love it so far.

3. Sleep & Sensory

Since we spend more than half our lives in bed, I’ve gotten intentional about it: 100% cotton sheets and 100% cotton pajamas only — no polyester touching my skin overnight. I keep just two sets of sheets (one on the bed, one in storage) so it never gets cluttered, and I chose white so I can bleach them.

• 🛏️ 100% cotton sheets — LINK

• 👕 100% cotton pajamas — LINK

• 🔴 Red light & Holder — LINK LINK

• ☀️ Circadian wake-up lamp — LINK

• 🧴 Refillable hand sanitizer — LINK LINK

In the mornings, I sit under a red light and a circadian wake-up lamp at the same time while I do my makeup — an easy habit stack. And I swapped my Bath and Body Works hand sanitizer for a refillable, non-toxic version I keep on my keys.

4. Home Systems

A few recent wins: shoe stackers in my closet and entry (genuinely one of my favorite purchases — everything has a home now), and boot clips that hold my folded pants, skirts, and shorts so everything is visible. As someone with ADHD, out of sight really is out of mind — I only use drawers for underwear and pajamas.

• 👠 Shoe stackers — LINK

• 🥾 Boot clips (16-pack) — LINK

• 🧺 Rolling 3-bag laundry sorter — LINK

• 🧹 Vacuum — LINK

• 🔌 Charging stations (in every room) — LINK

My laundry system got a full redesign, too. I used to haul one heavy bin with two or three loads mixed together down a flight of stairs. Now I have a lightweight, wheeled sorter with three separate compartments (darks, whites, colors) that clips shut and rolls — a much easier lift, especially being hypermobile.

I also picked up a new vacuum for my thick carpet, and I keep charger stations and glasses holders in every room so I’m never far from what I need.

5. Tech

I still use Amazon Alexa, though less than before — mostly for reminders and music now that AI tools handle the rest. My Apple AirTag is still on my keys (now in a strawberry case that actually stays put), and my phone case doubles as a wallet so I never have to carry a separate one.

• 🔊 Amazon Alexa — LINK

• 📍 Apple AirTag + strawberry case — LINK LINK

• 👛 Wallet phone case — LINK

• 🔋 Rechargeable batteries (D, AAA, AA) — LINK LINK LINK

For AI, I’m using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Notion regularly — including for shopping decisions. I do deep research before I spend money on anything, and it’s genuinely how I landed on my laundry system after a lot of trial and error.

What I quietly stopped using

Smart plugs and smart light bulbs — I just stopped resetting them up. My standing desk is still in my office, but I mostly sit now (standing all day isn’t good for my body). I don’t use planners or wall calendars; everything lives on my computer.

The real takeaway

None of the things on this list are new or trendy. That’s kind of the point. Every single one earned its spot by surviving years of my actual life — not a first impression, not a hype cycle, but real daily use, sometimes across a diagnosis that changed how my brain works. That’s what I’d encourage you to look for too: not the newest thing, but the thing that’s still there a year from now because it genuinely fits how you operate. Build the system, give it time, and let longevity be the only review that actually counts.

If you use any of these — or have something that’s stuck with you for years — hit reply or drop a comment, I’d love to hear about them.

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I’ve made a YouTube video every single week for six years. The question I get more than any other is some version of “how do you actually do this?”

So here it is, broken into the four steps it actually is, in the order it actually happens.

This Wednesday: AI for the Rest of Us

Quick note before I get into it — I’m hosting a live workshop this Wednesday.

This is for people new to AI or for realistic and useful ways to use it to improve your lives.

If any of this makes you want to see it in action, save your seat here.

Step 1: Research

How I Come Up With Video Ideas

The ideas themselves still come the old-fashioned way — in the shower, on a walk, mid-week when something just clicks. I don’t think that part should get automated, and I’m not sure I’d want it to.

How I Use Claude and Gemini for YouTube Research

There’s a real difference between an idea I like and an idea that’s actually worth an hour of filming and editing. Closing that gap is where AI comes in for me. I use Claude and Gemini, Gemini especially, because it’s a Google product connected to my actual YouTube data. That matters more than it sounds — when I ask what people are searching for, I’m getting something grounded in real search behavior on my channel, not a generic guess.

I recently built a Gemini notebook with two things loaded in: my full video archive (every video, plus its view count) and my running idea list, which is genuinely in the hundreds at this point.

Between those two, AI can tell me what’s already worked instead of guessing.

Using Google Search Console to Find Keywords

I also connected my channel to Google Search Console a few weeks ago after it launched for social media channels, and it was a bit of a wake-up call — almost 50% of my views come from search, not suggested videos or browsing. People are typing a specific question into YouTube and landing on my answer to it. This reiterated to me the importance of Titles, Tags and Keywords to getting more clicks and views.

Step 2: Organize (Notion + Claude)

My Notion Video Idea System (Tab Stack)

Everything I just described has to live somewhere, and for me that’s Notion, in a setup that I use now (you can grab my TabStack template it includes this setup)

It’s genuinely not complicated — a database of ideas, a status for each, a publish date, room for notes.

The Problems Database: My Content Planning Framework

The piece that changed things the most is one I only added recently: a Problems Database. Every video now has to link to a specific problem people are actually dealing with — AI, ADHD, motivation, home organization, content creation, whatever it is. Instead of asking “what should I make a video about,” which is a surprisingly hard question to answer cold, I ask “what problem am I solving,” and the idea follows from that.

How I Set Up Notion AI Project Instructions

I’ve also plugged my brand strategy, title formulas, and SEO notes directly into Notion AI’s project instructions, so every time I open a new chat to brainstorm, it already knows my voice and what I’m going for.

Using Claude for YouTube Titles, Descriptions & Tags

That same organizing instinct is what handles my titles, descriptions, tags, and timestamps once a video’s filmed and edited. I run the footage through Whisper Transcription (about $20 a year) to get a full written transcript, then hand it to a Claude project with my YouTube project instructions attached — a document that spells out, in very specific “do this, not that” language, exactly how I want everything formatted. I ask for title options, then a description and timestamps, then tags capped at 500 characters, because that’s a rule I set for myself.

It’s not AI being creative here. It’s AI doing the manual, repetitive work that used to take me forever, like hand-timestamping a seventeen-minute video. It doesn’t write my hooks, outline, or script, because I don’t have any of those — it just turns something I already said into a format YouTube and search engines can actually use.

Step 3: Film

My Weekly Filming Schedule

With ideas researched and a system to catch everything, filming itself is the boring part on purpose, because boring is what survives a busy week. I film on Mondays, every week, no exceptions.

Why I Don’t Script My YouTube Videos

This surprises people: I don’t script anything. I talk to the camera off the cuff and cut whatever doesn’t work later in editing.

The Camera and Equipment I Use for YouTube

People ask about equipment a lot, so here’s the honest version: I film on a Canon R50V, the video-focused version of their R series, which I bought last year for around $700–800 — my first upgrade since 2015. I have a separate mic and a ring light, and I used to have big studio lights that I got rid of because they were overkill. For phone and social content, I use a Rode mic and a basic phone tripod.

If anything, I’ve removed gear over the years rather than added it, because people want the information, not proof that I have the nicest setup in the room.

Step 4: Edit

Editing in CapCut Pro

I edit the same day I film, which is what makes the Tuesday-morning turnaround possible. I switched to CapCut Pro about two years ago after years on Final Cut Pro X, mostly because CapCut kept genuinely improving and Final Cut didn’t. I’ll do some color correction in post, but that’s the extent of it. It’s $20 a month, but I use it constantly, including with clients, so it earns its keep.

How I Make YouTube Thumbnails with ChatGPT

Thumbnails are the one piece I’ve fully outsourced, and not to a person — to ChatGPT specifically, not Claude, not Gemini, because I’ve found it’s just better at this particular task. I wrote it an extremely detailed description of what I want my thumbnails to look like, down to the color palette, specifically so they don’t read as obviously AI-generated. Sometimes I’ll take what it makes and bring it into Canva with a template so I can make small manual adjustments. I’m not a designer and I’ve never hired one — this is just a way to make my own thumbnails look more polished without pretending to be something I’m not.

How I Schedule and Publish My YouTube Videos

Once the video’s ready, I add an end slate, fill in all the YouTube fields with what Claude gave me back in Step 2, and schedule it for Tuesday morning. My Substack post goes out around the same time, and then I make promo content for LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok pointing people toward it.

That last part matters more than it sounds like, because my actual goal was never to grow my YouTube channel — it’s to grow my Substack. YouTube is where people find me. Substack is where I actually monetize, where my email list lives, and honestly, it’s the part of this whole thing I enjoy the most.

A Few Honest Notes Before You Go

What AI Does (and Doesn’t Do) in My YouTube Process

I want to be clear about this, since it gets exaggerated in both directions. AI helps me with research and with the manual formatting work after I’ve already filmed and edited. It does not come up with my ideas, write an outline or script, or touch the filming or editing — that’s still 100% me, every week. I sit somewhere in the middle of “AI does everything” and “I won’t touch it at all,” and six years in, that middle ground still works for me.

How Much Money I Make on YouTube

YouTube is not my full-time job, and it’s not close to one. I make somewhere between $50 and $100 a month from it, mostly from older videos that keep getting found through search long after I published them. Not a livable wage on its own, but a nice reminder that content built for search compounds over time instead of depending on one lucky viral moment.

However it is a great lead funnel for this Substack, my services, my Notion course and my Notion Template.

My #1 YouTube Content Tip

Make content people are actually looking for, not just content you feel like making.

Check out some of my other posts

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A couple of weeks ago my car wouldn’t start. I called a mechanic, and the first thing he asked was, “When was the last time your battery was changed?” I had no idea. He checked it for me: five years. If I’d had that written down somewhere, I could have caught it before it died on me in a parking lot.

That’s the moment that pushed me to finally finish the Home section of my Notion setup — the part of my system that tracks every recurring thing in my house and my car, so I’m never standing around going “when did I last...” again.

Upcoming Workshops!

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August 19th 12pm CST
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Why writing it down matters more than remembering it

Here’s the pattern I keep running into with recurring life stuff: when was the last time you changed this? When does that tax thing happen every year? When did you last get the HVAC filter replaced? None of these are hard questions. They’re just questions your brain was never built to hold onto, especially if you’re neurodivergent.

The fix isn’t a better memory. It’s a system that remembers for you.

Inside my Notion Home Manual

I do this all inside the Home section of my Notion template — I call the whole setup TABStack, one dashboard, no digging through pages. Here’s what’s actually in it:

Home Manual. Personal house rules — the stuff I’ve learned over time so I don’t have to relearn it. Things like: no plastic touching my mouth in the kitchen (glass first, silicone and stainless steel are fine), pajamas and bedding need to be 100% cotton, plus rules about laundry and storage systems. Part reminder, part reference doc I can feed into AI when I’m researching something new, so it already knows my preferences.

Home Information. Mortgage, home insurance, tax records — anything I’d otherwise be digging for in a Google Drive folder somewhere. One place instead of five.

Home Inventory. What I actually own, organized by room. Useful for insurance, useful for just knowing what’s already in the house before I buy a duplicate.

Refill & Recharge. This one’s saved me more money than anything else on this list. I only use rechargeable batteries — AA, AAA, some D — and this tracks which gadget uses which battery or charger, plus what needs refilling daily (my humidifier), weekly (the dishwasher), or whenever it runs low.

Daily Action Items & Restock. A running list of the small recurring things I need to do or restock, so “did I already do that?” has an answer.

Renew. Anything on an annual clock — domains, licenses, software, home and car insurance. I caught my car insurance renewal this exact week because it was sitting right here instead of buried in my inbox.

Maintenance (home + car). Every appliance, filter, and system in my house, plus a full car section: service logs (oil changes, registration, when I last changed the battery — July 20th, for the record), documents like my license and insurance, and even a spot for accident photos if I ever need them.

Projects. Where I track house problems I haven’t solved yet — the thing you walk past every day and think “I really need to deal with that.” I also use it to track what I’m selling on Facebook Marketplace, so I can actually see what I’ve made once something sells.

Chores & Seasonal Maintenance. Organized by room, so cleaning becomes a checklist instead of a guessing game.

You don’t need all of this

I built this over years, not in one weekend. You don’t need ten categories to get the benefit. Even one page — just a running list of “when did I last do X” — will save you a mechanic bill or a scramble at renewal time. Start with whatever recurring thing has burned you before (for me, it was the battery) and build outward from there.

Watch it, then build it

I walk through the entire setup, tab by tab, in this week’s video. If you want the exact template — all of this, already built — it’s part of TABStack ($50).

Buy the Template + Save Time

And if you want more of this kind of system-building, plus monthly Notion workshops and live office hours, that’s what my paid Substack is for.

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If I see one more post recommending 44 different apps for ADHD, I may officially lose it.

I’ve taught digital organization for years, and I keep seeing the same pattern:

You download a new productivity app. You spend hours setting it up. You use it enthusiastically for a week—and then your attention moves somewhere else.

Soon, your notes are scattered across five apps, three notebooks, Google Drive, your inbox, and screenshots you swear you’ll organize later.

The problem isn’t that you haven’t found the perfect app.

The problem is that your context is everywhere.

Pick one place for your brain

My answer is Notion.

That doesn’t mean it has to be yours. The important part is choosing one dependable place to store the information you want to keep.

I use Notion as my long-term external memory. It holds the projects, processes, ideas, reference materials, and information I don’t want to keep carrying around in my head.

Then I use Claude to help me understand that information, connect it, and act on it.

That’s my two-tool setup:

• Notion stores the context.

• Claude helps me use it.

But the tools aren’t the most important part.

The real power comes from documenting how I work.

AI doesn’t know what you haven’t told it

A lot of people open Claude, ChatGPT, or Notion AI, ask an important question, receive a generic answer, and conclude that AI doesn’t understand their business.

But every conversation starts from zero because the AI was given zero context.

It doesn’t know:

• What your business does

• Who you help

• What you sell

• How you sound

• What you’re currently building

• How you make decisions

• Which tools and processes you already use

• What you’ve tried before

So you end up explaining yourself again and again.

That is exhausting—especially when your brain already struggles with working memory, task initiation, and context switching.

My solution is a project-instructions file.

What is a project-instructions file?

Think of it as an SOP for your brain and business.

It’s a simple document that explains who you are, what you do, and how you want the AI to help you.

I usually save mine as Markdown files. Markdown is just a lightweight text format, so the files are small, portable, and easy to use almost anywhere.

The same instructions can work with:

• Claude

• Notion AI

• ChatGPT

• Gemini

• Other AI tools that let you upload files or provide project context

You write the context once, update it when necessary, and stop rebuilding it in every conversation.

Instead of hoping the AI remembers you, you give it something reliable to reference.

The four categories I document

I organize my project instructions into four main areas.

You do not need to create all four today. Start with the category that would save you the most time or repetition this week.

1. Brand and business

This file explains the foundations of my business.

It can include:

• Business overview

• Brand voice

• Positioning

• Ideal client profile

• Offers and services

• Brand architecture

• Frameworks and intellectual property

• Revenue goals and business model

• Competitor research

• Speaking topics and media-kit information

This context helps AI create work that sounds like me and supports the business I’m actually building.

Without it, I’m likely to receive generic marketing advice that could apply to almost anyone.

2. Operations and client experience

This category documents how the business runs.

It can include:

• Client onboarding

• Client offboarding

• Sales and follow-up processes

• Partnerships and referrals

• Email procedures

• File and folder naming

• Tech stack

• Tool guides

• Standard operating procedures

• Weekly and monthly reviews

• A master index of other instructions

This may not be the most exciting category to create, but it can eliminate an enormous amount of repeated decision-making.

You don’t have to remember every step because the process already exists outside your head.

3. Content

These are some of the instructions I use most often.

I create separate guidance for different platforms and content types because a YouTube description should not sound exactly like a LinkedIn post.

My YouTube instructions can tell Claude:

• How I structure descriptions

• How many tags to generate

• How to format timestamps

• Which calls to action to include

• How I want titles evaluated

• Which topics and phrases fit my audience

• What my content should—and should not—sound like

Then I can provide a transcript and ask Claude to turn it into a complete publishing package without explaining my preferences again.

The blank page is no longer completely blank.

4. Personal context

Not every project has to be about work.

I also use project instructions for areas of my personal life that involve a lot of information or repeated decisions.

For example, I maintain health context that includes the relevant background, results, protocols, and goals I want an AI assistant to consider when helping me organize questions or prepare for appointments.

I’ve also created instructions for decision-making tasks such as evaluating clothing. I can upload a photo and ask whether something fits the criteria I already established.

The goal is not to let AI make every decision for me.

The goal is to reduce the mental energy spent reconstructing the same decision-making process.

Why this matters for neurodivergent brains

For me, getting information out of my head and into a dependable system is essential.

If a process exists only in my memory, it can disappear the moment I’m distracted, overwhelmed, or pulled into another project.

Written instructions create continuity.

I can step away from something and return without rebuilding the entire mental context. I can move between tools without losing the original framework. I can ask AI for help without spending half the conversation explaining what happened before.

This isn’t about creating a rigid system that controls every part of your life.

It’s about building enough external structure that your brain doesn’t have to hold everything at once.

How to create your first file

Please don’t respond to this by trying to document your entire life in one afternoon.

Pick one category.

Then open the AI tool you already use and try a prompt like:

Help me create project instructions for my business. Ask me one question at a time about my brand, audience, offers, voice, goals, and current projects. When we’re finished, organize my answers into a reusable Markdown file.

You can also start with material you already have.

Upload an old brand document, client guide, presentation, process checklist, or collection of notes and say:

Use these materials as context. Create a structured project-instructions file that preserves the important details, removes repetition, and clearly tells an AI assistant how to support me.

You do not have to begin with a blank page.

You probably already have more context documented than you realize—it’s just scattered.

Your one action step

Choose the part of your life or business you are most tired of re-explaining.

Create one file for it.

Not eight new apps. Not an elaborate productivity system. Not an entire digital-life overhaul.

One file.

Use it in your next AI conversation and notice the difference between an assistant that is guessing and one that has actual context.

That is how you begin building a system for your brain.

Want live Notion + Claude workshops??

Join our Paid membership and get TWO live workshops each month—one focused on marketing and one focused on Notion—and monthly Notion office hours.

It’s $5 per month.

👉 Join the Substack community and access the training

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A Small Name Change

Quick housekeeping: I’ve renamed this newsletter from Optimization Toolbox to Red Thread Toolbox. Nothing about what you get is changing — it’s the same weekly newsletter, same monthly workshops, same office hours. The new name just reflects that this newsletter is officially merging under my main business, Red Thread Studio. It’s a bit of a play on my name and on the idea of a “red thread” running through everything — the thing that connects the story, the brand, the system. Felt like the right fit.

Today I presented a workshop with MN Women in AI, walked through my entire Notion + Claude setup live, and answered questions for almost two hours (with over 70 people there LIVE!).

is the founder of this group and fielded the chat, which was moving fast — privacy questions, “how do I even start” questions, “can I see your color coding” questions. All good ones.

I wanted to write up the core of what I taught, for anyone who couldn’t make it live or wants it in a format they can actually save and reference. (Which, if you’ve read this newsletter before, you know is basically the whole point of everything I do.)

Why Two Apps, Not Twelve

Before Notion, my systems were: Google Drive, Notes app, Docs, a to-do app, a folder of screenshots, and a lot of hoping I’d remember where I put things. No system. Just apps.

I found Notion in 2021 and built my YouTube channel and my life around it. Five years later, it’s replaced my calendar app, Calendly, Otter, every to-do list app, my CRM, and Google Drive. One home base.

Claude sits on top of it as the active layer — the thing I talk to every day to actually get things done with everything Notion is storing.

The two work together directly. No Zapier, no third-party glue required. That matters more than it sounds like it should, because every extra app is one more place your brain has to remember to check.

The One Thing That Actually Matters

If you take one thing from this post, take this: your project instructions are the system. Not the app.

I call mine SOPs — standard operating procedures. Every project I run in Claude (and the matching one in Notion) has the same skeleton:

• What the AI’s role is

• Its purpose

• Its audience

• Essential context

• My voice and brand rules

• What to avoid

• What “done” looks like

Chat only gets smarter with context. If you don’t have this written down somewhere, you’re re-explaining yourself every single time, and the AI is guessing. I’ve spent years figuring out things like what makes a good LinkedIn hook — that’s not something I want to re-derive every time I open a chat. It lives in the project instructions once, and then it’s just... there.

One more rule I stick to: one project, one job. Not “all my social media” — a YouTube project, a LinkedIn project, a health project. Each one has a single, narrow purpose. They can still talk to each other, but I never let one project try to do everything.

What I Actually Keep in Claude Projects

Four categories, roughly:

Brand & business — who I am, what I offer, revenue goals, ideal client. Anything about me and my business as a whole.

Clients & operations — per-client language and context, onboarding SOPs, follow-up email templates, even a project that tells me how to build new projects.

Content — the ones I use most. My YouTube project takes a transcript and spits out a description, timestamps, and hashtags in the time it used to take me 30 minutes to do by hand. Same idea for Instagram captions and presentation decks.

Personal & lifestyle — health tracking (this one’s been huge for me), meal planning, wardrobe, astrology, even my library list.

What Notion Actually Holds

If Claude is the active layer, Notion is long-term storage. Everything lives in one of six places for me:

1. Tasks — four separate to-do lists (business, clients, content, home/personal) that I can flip between instantly

2. Clients/CRM — basic contact info, a Kanban of where each relationship stands, gated pages I can share externally

3. Content — a database per platform, where every idea starts before it ever becomes a real post

4. Resources — my Knowledge Vault: books, quotes, frameworks, saved articles, PDFs, the apps I pay for

5. Home — wardrobe (yes, I photographed my entire closet), shopping lists, chores, car maintenance log

6. Entertainment — shows, podcasts, creators I follow

That’s it. That’s the whole hub.

A Real Workflow, Start to Finish

This is the one people asked the most follow-up questions about, so here’s the actual sequence:

1. Someone books a free call through my Calendly-replacement (Notion Calendar booking)

2. A Notion agent automatically pulls their email, finds their name, website, and LinkedIn, and adds them to my CRM

3. Before the call, I ask Notion AI to summarize what it knows about them

4. Notion’s AI meeting notes transcribe the call automatically

5. I ask Notion AI to pull action items from the transcript and tag my task database — they get added automatically

6. I ask Claude to draft a follow-up email using my saved template and the call transcript

Zero manual data entry in that entire chain. That’s the difference between an app and a system.

Claude as the Bridge

The honest answer on “Notion AI or Claude” is: both, for different jobs. Notion AI works well because it already has all my context sitting right there — I can tag five different databases in one prompt and get a single, informed answer.

But Claude is the better connector. It talks to Apple Health, which almost nothing else does. It talks to Gamma, to my website. I use it to turn a receipt photo into logged groceries, a photo of my bookshelf into an updated reading list, a thrifted item into a yes/no on the spot based on my style rules. Notion holds the data. Claude is what turns that data into something I use in the moment.

Come Build This With Me

If this made you want to actually build your own version instead of just reading about mine, I run monthly workshops just like the one this post came from — $5/month gets you the workshops, replays, and monthly office hours. I also send a free newsletter every Tuesday if you’d rather start there.

And if you want a starting point instead of building from scratch, my Notion template (TAB Stack) is $50, or you can get it bundled with my full course at NotionFoundations.com for $100.

— Jenna

A few weeks ago I saw a TikTok with a strange-looking grid on it — a big square split into 8 colored sections, each one split into 8 smaller boxes. 64 boxes total. No caption explaining what it was. I had to know.

Turns out it’s called the Harada Method, sometimes called Open Window 64 or a Mandala Chart. It’s a Japanese goal-setting framework, and it’s the same one Shohei Ohtani used as a teenager to map out exactly how he’d become the best baseball player in the world. He didn’t just write “be the best” on a sticky note. He broke it into 8 pillars — things like speed, control, mental strength — and then broke each of those into 8 concrete actions.

One goal. Eight pillars. Sixty-four steps. That’s the whole framework.

Why this works for ADHD brains

If you’ve ever stared at a goal like “grow my business to 10K months” and felt nothing but static, you already know the problem isn’t motivation. It’s that the goal is too big and too vague to actually act on. Your brain doesn’t know where to start, so it doesn’t start.

The Harada Method forces you to get specific. Instead of one overwhelming goal, you end up with a clear, visual map: this is the goal, these are the 8 things that build it, and these are the actions under each one. It’s disorganization turned into a system — which, if you’ve been here a while, you know is basically my whole thing.

How I built mine

I tried building this in Notion first. I tried Canva. Both worked, but they were static — I’d have to manually rebuild the grid every time I wanted to change something.

Then I tried it in Claude, and it clicked. I described the framework, gave Claude my goal, and it built the whole 64-cell chart as a live artifact — meaning I can actually check items off, and it saves my progress automatically. I even asked it to add a progress bar that tracks how many of the 64 items I’ve completed, and it just... did it. No design skills required.

The other thing I love about doing this in Claude: if you’re staring at your goal thinking “I don’t even know what my 8 pillars would be,” you can ask AI to help you brainstorm them first. I did this for my income goal (what actually makes me money, on a monthly and daily basis) and for a completely different one I’m calling my “glow-up Harada” — health, wellness, and the parts of my life that have nothing to do with business.

That’s the other thing worth knowing: you’re not limited to one of these. You can build a Harada Mandala for anything — your business, your health, your content, your posture, literally anything you want to get intentional about.

The prompt I used

Here’s the basic version of what I gave Claude to build mine:

“Help me create a Harada Method / Open Window 64 Mandala chart. My central goal is [your goal]. Break it into 8 supporting pillars, then 8 specific actions under each pillar. Build it as a live artifact with checkboxes for each of the 64 items and a progress bar at the top that tracks completion.”

Claude will ask you a few clarifying questions along the way — that’s normal, just answer based on your actual goal. The hardest part isn’t building the grid. It’s figuring out what actually belongs in it. That part’s on you (AI can help you brainstorm, but the clarity has to come from you).

Try it yourself

Watch the full walkthrough on YouTube to see the chart built step by step, then grab this prompt and build your own.

If you want more of this — monthly Notion workshops, AI workshops, and live office hours — that all happens inside my paid Substack community.

Come to my upcoming workshops in July!

Tomorrow! Post Less, Get More: A Smarter System for Social Media

​Creating content doesn’t have to take over your week. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to build a simple, repeatable content system that helps you spend less time posting—and get better results.

​We’ll cover how to:

• ​🤖 Use AI to brainstorm, plan, and write content faster

• ​📝 Organize your entire content workflow in Notion

• ​🎥 Batch content so you’re not creating posts every day

• ​📅 Schedule posts with tools like Metricool

• ​📊 Use analytics to focus on what’s actually working

• ​♻️ Turn one idea into weeks of content instead of constantly starting from scratch

This is part of my marketing workshop series on my other substack Twin Cities Collective.

RSVP here

Join me next week on Zoom for MN Women in AI (open to all) workshop on Claude & Notion

RSVP here

!

A couple videos ago, I posted something about Claude and the dashboards I’d built with it — the outfit randomizer, the meal picker, all of it. And I got a comment that’s been sitting with me ever since.

The gist of it: You lost me right away. The first thing you should be talking about is using AI to pick your clothes? AI should be curing cancer.

Here’s what he didn’t know. The next video I posted (which was live on my channel at the time) was me talking about how AI has been helping me solve a health problem I’ve been chasing answers for over the last three years.

Without it, I genuinely don’t think I would have figured out what’s going on in my body. That’s a full story I’m saving for once I actually have it resolved — I don’t want to tell it halfway. But it exists. It was right there, one video later, and he’d already decided what I was and wasn’t allowed to use this tool for.

I’m not writing this to argue with a comment. I’m writing it because it made me realize something I’ve been circling for a while: the way I use AI is probably different from the way a lot of people use it, and most of that difference comes down to being autistic.

The Manual I Never Got

I was diagnosed last year with autism. Officially, in adulthood, after a lifetime of feeling different without knowing why.

One of the things I’ve always struggled with — struggled with in a way that felt shameful before I had language for it — is decision making. Not big decisions. Small ones. What to wear. What to eat. What to do next when there are too many open options and no clear rule for choosing between them.

I’ve heard autism described as being handed a human body without the manual everyone else seems to have gotten. That description has stuck with me more than almost anything else I’ve read about it. Because that’s exactly what it’s felt like — watching everyone else move through decisions I froze on, like they’d been given instructions I never received.

Google was the first version of a manual for me. As a kid, it was just understanding things — being able to look something up instead of having to intuit it, or ask, or guess and get it wrong. AI has become the next version of that, except it’s not just answering questions anymore. It’s helping me build the actual infrastructure — the randomizers, the systems, the tools — that replace the manual I never got. For a research-oriented, detail-obsessed brain like mine, that’s not a small upgrade. It’s the difference between reading about a system and living inside one that finally works the way I do.

Fashion Was Never Frivolous

I watched an Instagram reel recently about why autistic people are often drawn to fashion, and something clicked that I hadn’t been able to name before: it’s the rules. Fashion has rules. Structure. If you learn them, you have a formula for a decision that would otherwise be paralyzing. When I went to a color analysis and was told what looked good on me, it was like a light switch that was long buried was turned on. I became utterly OBSESSED with optimizing my wardrobe.

“I was looking for a system, something with logic I could learn and rely on... a way to be seen accurately without having to be seen directly.”

She points to research that backs this up too: psychologist Tony Attwood, who specializes in autistic girls and women, has written about how their passionate interests — fashion and appearance among them — often function as a kind of social currency, a way of acquiring and signaling social information. And a well-known 2016 study by Lai and colleagues found that autistic women camouflage, or mask, more consciously than autistic men do — managing how they come across socially in ways that often go unnoticed by everyone around them.

I made my own video about this too — the outfit randomizer, the closet catalogue, and why “just pick something” was never as simple for me as it sounds.

So when someone tells me fashion isn’t a “real” use of AI — comes with a little bit of an edge to it too, if I’m honest, the assumption that a woman talking about outfits couldn’t also be someone doing serious work — I’d push back.

As a business owner, the way I present myself is part of how I’m taken seriously.

And as an autistic person, the way I’m perceived is one of the few things I actually get to control. A lot of us mask. A lot of us have learned to build a version of ourselves that reads as put-together, competent, “normal,” because the alternative has real consequences. An outfit randomizer isn’t trivial to me. It’s one less decision standing between me and a day where I actually get to function.

The Tax Nobody Sees

Here’s the part that comment missed entirely: neurodivergent people are already operating at a disadvantage the neurotypical public mostly doesn’t see. Masking — performing “normal” so you’re not penalized for how your brain actually works — is exhausting, and most of us have been doing it for years before we ever had a name for what we were doing it for.

So when someone tells me AI should be curing cancer instead of helping me get dressed, what I actually hear is someone who has never had to spend their entire cognitive budget on a decision most people make without thinking. If a tool quietly hands some of that budget back — why wouldn’t I use it?

Turns out I’m far from alone in feeling that. A recent CNBC piece on neurodivergent workers put language to something I’d been feeling but hadn’t seen written down: with AI agents everywhere, people with ADHD, autism, and dyslexia are reporting a more level playing field at work than they’ve ever had. A UK Department for Business and Trade study cited in the piece found neurodivergent workers were 25% more satisfied with AI assistants than their neurotypical colleagues — and more likely to recommend them to others.

One line from that piece stuck with me. Tara DeZao, a marketing executive at Pega who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, put it simply: “I’ve white-knuckled my way through the business world, but these tools help so much.” That’s exactly it. White-knuckling. Getting through, not thriving — and then suddenly having a tool that takes some of the load off the exact places you’ve been gripping the wheel hardest.

The specific ways it helps aren’t one-size-fits-all either, which is part of why it resonates so widely. For people who struggle to read emotional tone, AI that can flag emotional cues on a video call is a real accommodation. For people with dyslexia, it’s document readers. For people managing energy or mood swings, it’s AI that helps schedule hard tasks for when they’re actually capable of doing them. None of it is about replacing effort — it’s about finally getting tools built around how your brain actually works, instead of spending your whole life retrofitting yourself to tools that were never built with you in mind.

It’s not a coincidence, either, that so many neurodivergent people end up in entrepreneurship in the first place. Building your own business is, in a lot of ways, the same instinct as reaching for AI: instead of forcing yourself into a structure that was never built for how you think, you build your own. AI is just the newest, fastest version of that same move.

Where I Get Stuck

I don’t want this to read as unconditionally pro-AI, because I don’t feel unconditionally pro-AI. I notice the AI posters. I notice the noise. I have real, ongoing conflicting thoughts about what this technology is doing at scale, and I never want to be known as the AI person — like it’s my whole personality, or like I think it’s a fix for everything.

What I keep coming back to is this: I’ve been building systems and using tools for years. I’m tech-oriented. I’ve spent this whole newsletter trying to optimize the things in my life that felt unnecessarily hard. And AI has done something for me that no other tool has — not just for my health, but for my mental health, my executive functioning, the way I can finally see my own systems instead of just feeling around for them in the dark. That’s not nothing. I don’t think holding that truth and holding my discomfort about AI at scale are in conflict. I think they’re both just honest.

Why I’m Still Going to Talk About This

So that’s the thing about the comment. He wasn’t wrong that AI curing cancer matters more than an outfit randomizer, in the abstract. But he was working from an assumption — that he already knew what I was building toward, based on thirty seconds of one video. He didn’t know about the next one. He didn’t know about the three years before it.

I’m going to keep talking about the ways AI has actually changed things for me — the health story, once I’m ready to tell it properly, and everything underneath it about what it’s meant to finally have a manual for a brain that never came with one. Not because I think everyone should use it the way I do. Because I think there are more people out there quietly missing the manual than anyone realizes, and I’d rather show you what mine looks like than wait for someone else to decide what my story is allowed to be about.

Come Build This With Me

If any of this made you curious about what’s actually possible with these tools — not the hype version, the real one — I’d love to have you at one of two things I’m running:

• Tomorrow, July 8: a live AI agents workshop — we’re getting hands-on with building the kind of systems I keep talking about here. $10 for guests, free for paying members this substack. https://luma.com/gql0l0ob

• Next up: I’m co-hosting a Notion + Claude workshop with MN Women in AI, digging into exactly the kind of dashboard-and-database work that started this whole conversation. https://luma.com/ozapz56a?tk=ukp0Dd

If you want monthly workshops, make sure to join my $5/month membership

— Jenna

P.S. If you’re new here — I’m not a “the AI person,” I’m someone who’s spent years building systems for a brain that works differently, and AI is the newest tool in that toolbox. More on the health side of this once it’s ready to tell.

Read more

A few announcements before we get into it

I’m speaking at MN Women in AI on July 21st! Free tix

Open to all (it’s on zoom)
RSVP here

Office Hours Tomorrow

is Notion Office Hours! Paid members, link below the paywall for ticket discount link. Non-members you can signup for $10!

https://luma.com/1217oq2l

Our next workshop is next week! July 8th

Next workshop: It’s all about how to use Notion & Claude AI Agents together!

Stop using AI one prompt at a time. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to combine Notion AI and Claude to create a system that helps you think, plan, organize, and automate your work every day.

​We’ll explore what each platform does best, how they work together, and how to build AI agents that feel like a team supporting your business.

​You’ll learn how to:

​🤖 Create Claude Projects with custom instructions that act like specialized team members for your business

​📝 Use Notion AI to summarize meetings, organize notes, generate documentation, and work directly inside your workspace

​📅 Build AI-powered workflows for planning content, managing projects, and staying on top of your schedule

​⚡ Understand when to use Claude vs. Notion AI—and why they’re even more powerful together

​🔄 Automate repetitive tasks so you can spend more time on meaningful work

​🧠 Build an AI “team” that remembers your business, your voice, and your processes

​Whether you’re a solopreneur or managing a growing business, you’ll leave with practical workflows that help you delegate work to AI, reduce busywork, and build a smarter digital workspace.

​Perfect for: Business owners, creators, consultants, and Notion users who want AI to become a true productivity partner—not just another chatbot.

Same deal, free for paid members (link below the paywall), otherwise $10!
https://luma.com/gql0l0ob

Now onto this week’s video tutorial

Your health data is probably already being collected.

If you have an Apple Watch, an iPhone, a smart scale, an Oura Ring, a glucose monitor, or really any wearable, there is a good chance you have months — maybe years — of data sitting somewhere.

Steps. Sleep. Weight. Heart rate. HRV. Workouts. Respiratory rate. VO2 max. Body composition. Random little charts that look useful for five seconds and then vanish back into an app you forget to open.

That was my problem.

I had a lot of health data.

I did not have a system for understanding it.

And for my ADHD brain, that distinction matters.

Because collecting data is not the same thing as using data.

The problem: my health data was trapped in apps

For years, I had Apple Health collecting information from my phone, Apple Watch, and smart scale.

My Apple Watch tracks things like:

• Steps

• Heart rate

• Resting heart rate

• HRV

• Sleep

• Workouts

• VO2 max

• Respiratory rate

My smart scale tracks things like:

• Weight

• Body fat percentage

• BMI

• Body composition trends

• Water weight and related metrics

And Apple Health pulls a lot of that into one place.

In theory, this is amazing.

In reality, I was rarely looking at it in a way that helped me make decisions.

I would open Apple Health, click around, see a number, think “Is that good?” and then immediately forget what I was comparing it to.

Very helpful. Very scientific. Ten out of ten.

The issue was not that I needed more data.

The issue was that I needed a better frontend for the data I already had.

The system: Apple Health → Claude → Notion → Claude dashboards

The workflow I’ve been building looks like this:

Apple Health / Apple Watch / smart scale → Claude mobile → Notion databases → Claude dashboards and charts

Here’s the plain-English version:

1. Apple Health collects the raw data.

2. Claude mobile can access Apple Health data on my phone.

3. Claude sends the relevant stats into Notion databases.

4. Notion becomes the long-term storage system.

5. Claude pulls from Notion and turns the data into dashboards, charts, and patterns I can actually understand.

The part that changed everything for me is that this is not a giant manual spreadsheet process.

Once the setup exists, the daily workflow is basically:

Open Claude on my phone → ask it to update my stats → approve the actions → let it send the data to Notion.

That’s the kind of system I need.

Not “build a perfect tracking ritual and remember to do it forever.”

More like: “Press the button, let the robot do the boring part, then look at the pattern.”

Why Notion is the home base

I still like Notion as the place where the data lives.

Not necessarily because Notion charts are the only way I want to visualize everything. Honestly, for some of the more advanced charts, I prefer Claude’s dashboards.

But Notion is great as the home base because it gives the data structure.

For this system, I created separate databases for different kinds of health metrics, including things like:

• HRV

• Resting heart rate

• Daily step count

• VO2 max

• Respiratory rate

• Weight and body composition

• Sleep

• Blood glucose, when I was testing a monitor

Each database is simple.

For example, a heart rate tracker might just include:

• Date

• Resting heart rate

• Any notes or context

That’s it.

This is an important point: the database does not need to be fancy to be useful.

A lot of people overbuild the dashboard before they have the habit.

I would rather have a boring database that updates consistently than a beautiful dashboard that requires too much manual maintenance.

Why Claude is the analyst

Notion stores the system.

Claude helps me understand the system.

That is the difference.

Once the data is in Notion, Claude can help me look at trends over time. It can create charts, compare averages, spot changes, and summarize what seems to be moving in the right direction.

For example, I’ve been looking at things like:

• Is my resting heart rate trending down?

• Is my HRV trending up?

• Are my daily steps increasing?

• Is my VO2 max improving?

• Are there changes in sleep or recovery?

• What does the six-month trend look like compared with this month?

This has been especially helpful because the scale is not always the first thing to move.

And if the only number I looked at was weight, I would miss a lot of evidence that other things are improving.

That matters.

Because if you are working on your health and only tracking one number, it is very easy to feel like nothing is happening.

But when I can see that my resting heart rate has improved, my HRV is moving in the right direction, or my steps have become more consistent, I get a fuller picture.

Not a perfect picture.

A more useful one.

The ADHD-friendly part: reducing the memory burden

This is where the system really works for my brain.

I do not want a health tracking setup that depends on me remembering to manually enter 12 different numbers every day.

That is not a system. That is a guilt machine wearing a spreadsheet costume.

For me, the goal is to reduce the number of decisions and memory steps.

I want the system to answer:

• Where does the data come from?

• Where does it go?

• How often do I update it?

• What do I look at when I review it?

• What patterns actually matter?

That is the difference between “I should really track this” and “this is already being tracked, and now I know where to look.”

The goal is not to become obsessed with numbers.

The goal is to make invisible patterns visible.

The setup I used

The setup has a few pieces.

1. A device collecting data

For me, that’s mostly my Apple Watch, iPhone, and smart scale.

You could also use another wearable or tracker, depending on what connects to your phone and what data you care about.

2. Apple Health as the collection hub

Apple Health is basically the backend database for your body.

It may not be the perfect analysis tool, but it does a good job collecting information from different sources.

3. Notion databases for long-term storage

I created simple Notion databases for the metrics I wanted to track.

Each database has the date and the relevant number or stat.

Again: simple is the point.

4. A Claude project with instructions

I set up a Claude project with instructions that tell it which Notion databases to update.

The instructions are basically:

“When I ask you to update based on Apple Health, pull the relevant Apple Health data and add it to these Notion databases with the date and correct properties.”

Then I include the relevant Notion database links.

5. Claude mobile for the Apple Health connection

This part matters: Apple Health is on the iPhone.

So the workflow happens through Claude mobile, not my laptop.

When I want to update the data, I open Claude on my phone, go into the project, and ask it to update the stats for a day, a month, or whatever range I need.

The first time, it asks for permission.

After that, I can approve the actions and watch the data populate into Notion.

It genuinely feels like magic the first time you see it happen.

What I would keep simple if you try this

If you want to build something like this, I would not start with every possible metric.

Start with the few that actually help you understand your patterns.

For me, the most useful categories are:

• Movement: steps, workouts, VO2 max

• Recovery: sleep, HRV, resting heart rate

• Body trends: weight and body composition

• Context: notes about routines, stress, travel, illness, or life changes

You do not need every single health metric in Notion.

You need the level of detail that helps you make better observations.

A good starter version might be:

• Daily steps

• Sleep hours

• Resting heart rate

• Weight

• Notes

• Weekly summary

That is enough to start seeing patterns without turning your life into a data entry job.

A very important boundary

This is not medical advice.

I am not using Claude to diagnose anything.

I am not asking AI to replace a doctor, interpret labs in a clinical way, or tell me what treatment decisions to make.

I am using it for:

• Organization

• Pattern recognition

• Trend summaries

• Dashboard support

• Personal reflection

There is a big difference between “help me notice patterns in my own data” and “tell me what medical decision to make.”

If you are making actual health decisions, talk to a qualified medical professional.

AI can help organize the information.

It should not be the authority on your body.

The bigger lesson: your data needs a system

This is really what I keep coming back to.

Most of us do not have a data problem.

We have a system problem.

The data exists, but it is scattered.

The app exists, but we forget to open it.

The chart exists, but it does not tell the full story.

The habit exists for three days, and then life happens.

So the question is not “How do I track everything perfectly?”

The better question is:

How do I build a system that makes the useful patterns easier to see?

That is what this health dashboard does for me.

It takes passive tracking and turns it into active self-awareness.

Not perfectly.

Not clinically.

Not in a way that requires me to become a spreadsheet person.

Just enough to help me see what is changing and where I may want to pay attention.

If you want to try this

Here’s the simplest version:

1. Pick 3–5 health metrics you already track.

2. Create a simple Notion database for each one, or one combined health log.

3. Set up a Claude project with instructions for what to update.

4. Use Claude mobile to pull from Apple Health.

5. Review the trends weekly or monthly instead of obsessing daily.

And remember: boring systems are often the systems that actually work.

A dashboard does not need to be complicated to be useful.

It just needs to help your brain see what matters.

If your health data is already being collected, you may not need a new app.

You may just need a better system for reading it.

If you want to see the visual walkthrough, I’m sharing the full video on YouTube where I show the Apple Health → Claude → Notion workflow and the dashboards I built.

And if you want more ADHD-friendly Notion and AI systems like this, subscribe to Optimization Toolbox for practical workflows you can actually use. Upgrade to get access to office hours and workshops

Read more

I want to tell you about a moment that happened a few weeks ago on a webinar.

Someone shared their screen, and I saw this clean, interactive dashboard pulling data in real time. And I said — out loud — wait, you can make those live in Cowork?

I went home and spent the next few hours making every dashboard I had been wanting for years.

Here’s what I built, how I did it, and why the Notion + Claude combination is something I think more people need to know about.

Before I forget, I’m hosting a free workshop tomorrow with my signature talk “Repeat to be Remembered”-RSVP here!
https://luma.com/7scgwnje

Why Notion + Claude Is Different

Most of us know that Claude can help you write things, summarize things, think through things. And most of us know Notion is a great place to organize your life.

But what I didn’t fully understand until recently is that they work together — natively, without a third-party tool — and that you can feed Notion data directly into Claude to build things that Notion itself can’t do.

I have five years of data in Notion. Five years of meal lists, closet catalogs, writing frameworks, business goals. And now I can take all of that and turn it into interactive tools that I actually open and use every day.

What I Actually Built

The Outfit Randomizer

I have a database in Notion where I’ve photographed and catalogued basically everything I own — tops, bottoms, jewelry, headbands, all of it. I’ve used Notion AI to describe each item and added my personal style rules.

I connected that database to Claude (in a project description) and said: Create a top/bottom/accessories randomizer with 20–30 options to try out.

Now I have a pinned artifact in my Cowork sidebar. I click “Randomize,” and it gives me a complete outfit from my actual wardrobe. If I add new pieces to my Notion database, Claude notices and updates the randomizer.

No subscription app. No manual entry. Just my own data doing the work.

Check out how I organize my closet in Notion

The Meal Randomizer

Same concept — I had a list of 186 meals I actually like to eat (filtered by what works for my body) sitting in Notion doing nothing. I told Claude: Create a randomizer from this list. Make it filterable by gluten-free, etc. Then make it a live pinned artifact.

Now when I have no idea what to eat, I click “Pick for me.” Done.

The Revenue Randomizer

This one I built after attending a workshop about what they called “revenue work” — small tasks you can do each day that move your business forward. Things like: Ask your email list to forward this to a friend. Improve your opt-in offer. Reach out to a past client.

I had Claude generate a list of these, turned it into a spinner, and pinned it. Every morning I spin it once and do the thing it lands on. The checklist is right there in the artifact.

The LinkedIn Writing Guide

I had years of writing frameworks and content resources collected in Notion. I copied the relevant page into Claude and said: Make this an artifact. Put it in my brand colors.

Now I have a visual, checkable version of my writing guide that’s way more useful than a static Notion page.

How the “Live Artifact” Part Works

Here’s the piece that makes this more than just a pretty document.

In Claude’s Cowork mode, you can create what are called live artifacts — interactive HTML pages that get pinned to your sidebar and stay there. They pull from your data, they’re interactive, and you can update them just by asking Claude to change something in chat.

So when I want to add a new outfit rule or tweak the revenue spinner, I don’t have to rebuild anything. I just say add this or change that, and it updates.

I currently have about 20 of these pinned. Some pull directly from Notion databases. Some I built from scratch in Claude without any Notion data at all. But either way, they live in one place and I actually use them.

How to Get Started

You don’t need to have five years of Notion data to try this. You just need one database or list you already have.

Here’s the simplest path:

1. Pick something you already track in Notion — meals, tasks, wardrobe, books, ideas, anything.

2. Open a new Claude project (or Cowork session) and paste in the Notion page link or copy the data directly.

3. Ask for something interactive — a randomizer, a checklist, a reference guide, a dashboard.

4. Say “make it a pinned live artifact” so it stays accessible.

5. Iterate from there — you can always go back into the chat and ask it to change colors, add items, or adjust the layout.

The whole point is that you don’t need to know how to code any of this. You just describe what you want and Claude builds it from your data.

A Note for My Fellow ADHD Brains

One thing I’ve noticed is that the randomizer format is especially useful for me. When I have too many options, I freeze. When something picks for me, I just... do it.

Instead of buying an app for this, I built my own — from my own data, in my own style — in about 20 minutes.

If you’re someone who has data everywhere but struggles to actually use it, this combination might be what makes it click for you.

Want to Go Deeper?

I’m hosting monthly workshops over on my Paid Substack where we actually build things like this together. For $5/month, you get access to the workshops, replays, and templates.

See upcoming schedule here

I also have a Notion template system called the TABStack if you want a starting point for getting your life organized in Notion before you connect it to Claude.

Either way — if you try this, I’d love to hear what you build.

— Jenna

Before I forget, tomorrow is this month’s Notion Workshop all about creating your Notion Dashboard

Get Tix here

If you are a paid member, get the discount code in last week’s issue

Hey friends — welcome back to Optimization Toolbox.

I want to talk about something I’ve been circling for a while: we’re so good at treating life like a technical problem.

If something hurts, we want the fix.

If something feels hard, we want the hack.

If our brain feels messy, we want the system.

But a lot of what we’re dealing with isn’t “technical.” It’s nervous system.

It’s stress that didn’t finish its cycle.

It’s emotion we didn’t have space to feel.

It’s our bodies doing their job: protecting us, bracing for impact, storing what we couldn’t process in the moment.

And that’s why today’s episode felt worth sharing — because it’s a reminder that sometimes the most helpful “tool” isn’t another strategy.

Sometimes it’s learning how to listen to what your body has been carrying.

Here’s what you’ll get in this issue:

• why I brought Kevin Miles on the podcast

• what his work is

• the biggest takeaways to listen for when you hit play

• how this connects to my ADHD → health → genetics rabbit hole (and why it changed my life)

Why this conversation belongs on Optimization Toolbox

Optimization Toolbox has always been about tools — not just apps and templates, but tools that make neurodivergent life feel more navigable.

And one of the “tools” I don’t see talked about enough in neurodivergent spaces is body work.

Not in a spa-day way.

In a nervous system support way.

In a “my body is carrying stress I can’t talk myself out of” way.

So when I say I want better systems, what I really mean is: I want supports that help me live inside a sensitive system without constantly white-knuckling it.

That’s why I wanted this episode to exist publicly — because if you haven’t already fallen down the somatic / nervous system rabbit holes, you might not even know this kind of work exists.

How I met Kevin (and why I brought them on the show)

This week’s podcast episode is with Kevin Miles — someone I met at a networking event and immediately started nerding out with about health.

And I know you’ve seen me on a health journey the last couple of years, so you know I’m always collecting new frameworks and asking a million “wait, but what about this?” questions.

Kevin became one of those people I kept coming back to — not just as a practitioner, but as someone I wanted to talkto about health.

At some point I booked a session with them… and it completely blew my mind.

I kept coming back. And back. And back.

And now I just feel like I have to share them with you — because Kevin is genuinely wise and valuable, not only here in the Twin Cities (they’re in Edina) but also for the broader internet community.

What Kevin actually does (in real-life terms)

I think the best way I can describe Kevin’s work is this:

It’s not chiropractic.

It’s not Reiki.

It’s not therapy — but it can be emotional.

It’s somatic work in the sense that your body participates. Your nervous system participates. Your emotions (even the ones you’ve outgrown intellectually) participate.

One of the core ideas in the episode is that your muscles can be used as information—a way of checking what your nervous system is doing under the surface.

Kevin describes it as a kind of interpretation work:

• your body is already running protection programs (tightness, shutdown, pain, fatigue, inflammation)

• sometimes the “problem” isn’t where the pain is

• and sometimes what looks physical has a big emotional component (because the nervous system doesn’t separate them neatly)

I used to jokingly call Kevin “my healer,” but honestly a more accurate description is:

someone who helps you interpret what your body is doing.

Because the vibe isn’t “Kevin fixes you.”

The vibe is: “Let’s pay attention to the signals and see what your system is responding to.”

And honestly? That framing alone has changed how I treat my own symptoms. Not as enemies. Not as inconveniences. As communication.

What I’m taking from Kevin (and what to listen for in the episode)

If you listen to the episode, here are a few of the biggest lessons Kevin shared that I keep coming back to:

• You’re not broken — you’re getting signals. A symptom is often the body trying to protect you, not punish you.

• Pain is pain. Your brain doesn’t neatly separate emotional pain from physical pain — it responds to “threat” either way.

• The body keeps the receipt. Things can be buried/subconscious and still show up as tension, inflammation, tightness, fatigue, shutdown.

• Healing needs permission. If your nervous system doesn’t feel safe, it won’t accept change — even if your brain “wants” it.

• Root cause > band-aids. Quick fixes can mute the signal, but they don’t always resolve why the system is flaring in the first place.

• The goal isn’t intensity — it’s regulation. Sometimes the most powerful shift is a small downshift (a sigh, a swallow, a softening).

As you listen, notice how often Kevin is basically doing one thing: helping people learn the language their body is already speaking.

The thing somatic work keeps reminding me: your body is holding the story

One of the simplest things Kevin said is the thing that keeps echoing in my head:

Your brain doesn’t really differentiate between emotional pain and physical pain — it just registers pain.

And I keep thinking about how much of our culture is trained to chase the technical explanation first.

What’s the diagnosis. What’s the protocol. What’s the supplement. What’s the productivity system.

But so many of the things that run our lives aren’t “technical problems” — they’re unseen emotional experiences that never got felt all the way through.

And when they don’t get felt, they don’t disappear. They just get stored.

Tension. Tightness. Inflammation. Shutdown. Fatigue. “Random” symptoms that keep showing up no matter how many to-do lists we perfect.

Because if you’ve ever been told “it’s all in your head,” the rebuttal isn’t “no it isn’t.”

The truth is more annoying and more hopeful:

Your head is in your body.

Somatic work is one of the first things that helped me take that sentence seriously — not as a metaphor, but as a map.

In the same way a chiropractor can adjust what’s out of alignment in your spine, sometimes what’s out of alignment is emotional.

Sometimes you don’t need another explanation — you need an emotional release. An adjustment. A nervous system “exhale.”

That’s what I mean when I say this kind of work is less about “fixing you” and more about helping your system finally process what it’s been carrying.

This is also why the “permission” part matters so much.

Not forcing change.

Not muscling your way into healing (pun intended).

Permission.

Because if your nervous system doesn’t feel safe, it won’t accept the update.

And then — from that place — you can actually get to root cause instead of just adding another band-aid on top of a signal.

Neurodivergence, stress, and nervous system dysregulation

This is where I want to speak directly to the neurodivergent folks reading.

A lot of us are walking around with nervous systems that are:

• more sensitive to stimulation

• more reactive to stress

• more likely to get stuck in overwhelm

• better at noticing pattern… and also better at noticing threat

Which means a “small” stressor can become a full-body event.

Not because you’re dramatic.

Because your system is tuned differently.

And when you’ve spent years coping (masking, pushing through, over-functioning, under-resting), your body can slip into dysregulation faster — and stay there longer.

So you don’t just get anxious — you get tense. You don’t just feel stressed — you get inflamed. You don’t just feel overwhelmed — you get shut down.

We are electric beings. Chemical beings. Pattern-recognition beings.

And when the system is overloaded, it doesn’t only show up as thoughts. It shows up as sensations.

My genetics rabbit hole (and why it actually made me feel kinder to myself)

If I had to timestamp this era of my life, it starts in 2020.

That’s when I went down the ADHD / neurodivergent rabbit hole — trying to understand my brain, my patterns, my coping strategies, and why certain things felt so much harder for me than they seemed to be for other people.

Then in 2022, my body basically raised its hand like: “Hey. We need to talk.”

Health issues started showing up, and what I thought were separate categories — brain stuff over here, body stuff over there — started to blur into one tangled, very personal ecosystem.

That’s what sent me into genetics.

I did genetic variant testing and started learning about how my body is wired. And I’m still, to this day, a big fan of this lens — not because it’s trendy, but because it helped me stop treating everything as a character flaw.

Here’s the bridge I didn’t expect:

somatic work taught me to listen; genetics helped me understand what my body had been trying to say.

It’s also why I’ve gotten so interested in nutrigenomics — how food, nutrients, and environment interact with your unique biology. I’m hoping to share more of that on my other blog, The Optimization Lab, which is the more health-focused space.

Learning more about genetics didn’t make me feel doomed.

It made me feel relieved.

Because it gave me language for things I thought were moral failings:

• why certain foods wreck me

• why stress hits me so physically

• why “normal” routines don’t always work for me

• why I can be incredibly high-functioning… until I’m not

And it wasn’t just theory. It started changing what I did in real life.

Over the last year, I’ve gone gluten-free and dairy-free, started paying attention to the “non-toxic” side of things, and basically rebuilt my health habits from the ground up — not because I wanted a perfect lifestyle, but because I was trying to stop living in a body that was quietly doing hard things in the background.

I also learned some very specific, very personal puzzle pieces:

• I’m not autistic — I have Gilbert syndrome, which helped explain symptoms I’d normalized for years

• I’m still investigating whether I’m hypermobile / potentially dealing with Ehlers-Danlos

• and I’ve realized how many of my “I guess this is normal?” experiences were actually signals I’d learned to ignore because I looked fine and (most days) felt fine

Which is maybe the most disorienting part of adulthood: realizing you can be functional and still not be okay.

For me, genetics research isn’t about labeling myself or trying to hack my body into perfection.

It’s about building an evidence-based relationship with reality.

Like: “Oh. This is the body I have. This is the nervous system I have. This is the sensitivity I have.”

And then the question becomes: What kinds of supports make this system work better?

And honestly… once you start asking that question, you can’t unsee how connected everything is.

A tiny nervous system reset you can try today

Kevin shared one of the simplest tools I’ve heard in a long time:

1. Interlace your fingers and place your hands behind your head

2. Gently move your eyes to the far right (without straining)

3. Wait for a yawn / sigh / swallow

4. Then move your eyes to the far left and wait again

It’s almost laughably small.

And that’s the point.

Because regulation doesn’t always start with a breakthrough.

Sometimes it starts with a downshift.

Topics we cover in the episode

• What applied kinesiology is (and how muscle testing is used in that approach)

• The role of the nervous system in pain, protection patterns, and healing

• How to tell if something is an emotional story vs a physical story (and why it matters)

• Why your brain doesn’t differentiate emotional pain vs physical pain — it just registers “threat”

• How some practitioners connect emotion + physiology (including patterns like “this shows up in the body in predictable places”)

• What it looks like to hold space and let an emotion surface and move through

• “Awareness” + the right reframe as part of shifting a pattern

• Layers of the process: muscle → organ → emotion (and how practitioners follow that trail)

• Stress responses + patterns like fight/flight/freeze/fawn (and how they show up somatically)

• Vagus nerve downshift: what regulation can feel like in real time

• Boundaries + not “throwing emotional energy or money” at problems you don’t own

• Nutrition/supplements as part of the picture (and why more isn’t always better)

• Real-world logistics: Kevin’s office at Guided Health in Edina

Wednesday: my Notion workshop (and why it connects to this)

I’m hosting a Notion workshop this Wednesday, and I want to name why it belongs in this same conversation:

Because the systems we build are often nervous system supports.

A good system reduces anxiety.

A bad system becomes another demand.

So we’re not building a fancy Notion dashboard. We’re building something that works on real days — especially if you’re neurodivergent, overwhelmed, or in a season where your brain is doing its best and your body is asking for care.

One more thing: Optimization Lab = health

Quick note before you go:

If Optimization Toolbox is where I share the frameworks, stories, and lessons I’m learning in real time…

The Optimization Lab is where I’m letting myself go deeper on the health side.

More of the behind-the-scenes: what I’m testing, what I’m tracking, what I’m learning, and the practical lifestyle shifts and systems that support it.

So if you want the “health journal + experiments” layer beyond Optimization Toolbox, that’s where it lives.

Let me know what you think of the episode!

Jenna Redfield

I hate spending money.

I know that’s maybe not the most glamorous way to open a newsletter, but it’s true. I’m a thrifter by nature. I’ve always been a little bit of a cheapskate, and honestly? I’ve made it work for me. Over seven years of running my own business full-time — solo, no employees, doing everything myself — I’ve gotten really good at finding the best, cheapest way to do things without sacrificing quality.

And right now, with the economy being what it is, I think a lot of us are asking the same question: what do I actually need to pay for?

So today I’m doing something I’ve never done before. I’ve made tech stack videos, but I’ve never come at it purely from a money angle. This is my full breakdown — what I pay for, what I cut, and why. Real numbers included.

If you want a calmer “one place to start” corner of the internet: my Optimization Toolbox member library is a growing resource vault + workshop hub built for ADHD/ND brains (so you can actually find the thing you saved). It’s part of my $5/month Paid Substack.

Next live Notion workshop: June 17, 2026 12:00 PM (12pm CST). If you’ve been wanting a simple, usable Notion home base, come hang out live. More on this below the paywall.

Want to know all the events & workshops I’m hosting? Head to my events calendar page here

https://luma.com/jennaredfield

What I Actually Pay For Every Month

Let’s start with the stuff that costs money, because I think that’s what you really want to see.

Webflow — $18/mo (or $150/year) My website lives here now. If you head to jennaredfield.com, that’s Webflow. I switched when I left FG Funnels (more on that in a second), and I’ve really liked it. It’s clean, it’s fast, and it gives me the control I need without requiring a developer.

Claude Pro — $20/mo I switched from ChatGPT — same price, but Claude works better for the way I write and think. I still hit limits sometimes, which is annoying, but I also get Notion AI as a Notion Ambassador, so between the two I’m covered. If you’re paying for a copywriting tool on top of your AI subscription, that’s probably redundant at this point.

Google Workspace — ~$8/mo Custom domain email. Honestly I’m looking at phasing this out since I barely use that domain anymore, but for now it’s still on the list.

Google One — $10/mo Cloud storage for Google Photos. I’m at 80% of a terabyte, which is wild, but I need it for all my content.

Zoom Pro — ~$17/mo Non-negotiable for client calls and workshops. Nothing says “I’m not a professional” like getting cut off at 30 minutes mid-meeting. Zoom Pro stays.

Canva Pro — ~$10/mo (billed annually) I will probably never leave Canva. I need my custom fonts and brand colors, and Pro makes that seamless. Without it you end up paying individually for everything, which costs more. Annual billing is the move.

Squarespace — ~$15/mo (domains only) I don’t actually use Squarespace for a website — I just have my domains there. They used to be on Google Domains, Squarespace bought them, and I never got around to moving them. At $15ish a year per domain it’s not worth the hassle.

CapCut Pro — $20/mo I use this for all my video editing clients, subtitles, short-form content — everything. If you do any professional video work, CapCut Pro on desktop is worth it.

Kindle Unlimited — $13/mo I count this as a business expense because almost everything I read is business or nonfiction. $13/month for unlimited books is a genuinely good deal if you’re a reader.

ThriveCart — paid once, years ago This is how I host my courses and handle checkouts. I paid a one-time fee of $700 a few years back and it’s more than paid for itself. No monthly platform fees, no percentage taken on sales. If you’re paying monthly for a course platform, ThriveCart’s lifetime deal is worth looking into — though I’ll note there are some changes happening with the platform that have people talking, so do your research.

The Biggest Cut I Made: FG Funnels

This one deserves its own section because it changed everything.

I used to pay $97/month for FG Funnels. It did a lot — website, CRM, funnels, landing pages, automations. But I slowly realized I was using other apps for most of those things anyway, and I was paying nearly $100/month for a tool I was only half-using.

So I cut it.

I moved my website to Webflow. I moved my systems to Notion. Moved my newsletter to Substack. And honestly? Nothing broke. Notion now handles everything FG Funnels was doing on the organizational side, and for free. That one decision saved me over $1,000 last year.

If you’re paying for a complicated all-in-one tool and only using 30% of it, that’s the first place to look.

What I Don’t Pay For (That You Might Expect Me To)

Email marketing. I use Substack. You’re reading it right now. I’m not paying for ConvertKit or ActiveCampaign or any of the other platforms that charge you based on your list size. Substack is free to publish, and if you want to offer paid subscriptions, they take a small cut. For where I am right now, that model makes way more sense.

A CRM. I built what I need in Notion. No Dubsado, no HoneyBook, no 17Hats.

Project management tools. No Asana, no ClickUp, no Monday. Notion handles it.

A separate scheduling tool. I don’t pay for a social media scheduler (I use Metricool free plan). Between what’s built into the platforms and what I can do manually, I haven’t found one that’s worth the monthly fee for my volume.

An office. I work from home. When I need a change of scenery, I go to a coffee shop.

If you want a list of all the FREE apps I’ve found and use, make sure to check it out in my resource library by upgrading!

The Real Total

Add it all up and I’m spending roughly $100–150/month on software. That’s it. For a full-time creative business that does video production, content creation, courses, and client work.

That’s not because I’m cutting corners — it’s because I’ve been intentional about it. Every tool on that list earns its spot. Everything else either got cut or I found a free alternative.

The economy right now is hard. A lot of people are looking for ways to trim. If you’re a solopreneur, the tech stack is one of the first places to audit. Go through your subscriptions, ask what each tool is actually doing for you, and see what’s got a free or cheaper alternative.

Chances are, you’re paying for at least one thing you could replace tomorrow.

Need help? Free Discovery Call https://jennaredfield.com/free-call

Want my full equipment list — cameras, mics, the whole setup? That’s inside my Substack resource library, available to paid subscribers for $5/month. It also includes replays of past workshops and a bunch of other stuff I keep adding to.

Read more

Your Year of Notion: Workshops, Office Hours, and Real Systems for $5/Month

I’ve been teaching Notion to entrepreneurs for a while now. And I love my courses — they’re structured, they go deep, and they give you a foundation.

But here’s the thing about Notion, Claude, and AI in general right now: things are changing fast.

What I taught six months ago isn’t wrong. It’s just... already evolving. New tools, new prompts, new ways to build. And a static course can only capture a snapshot of that.

So I’ve been thinking about what would actually serve you better for where we are right now — and I think it’s this: a membership built around live, evolving workshops.

What Paid Members Get

For $5/month (or $50/year — you save $10), here’s what you get as a paid Optimization Toolbox subscriber:

🗓️ One workshop every month

Practical, focused, and built for how ADHD entrepreneurs actually work. Each session digs into a specific system, tool, or workflow — Notion, Claude, or the intersection of both.

☕ Office hours on the first Wednesday of every month

Bring your actual setup. Bring your questions. Bring the Notion database that’s been stressing you out. We work through it together.

🔒 A members-only resource page

All workshop links, recordings, and extras in one Notion page — available only to paid subscribers. I’ll drop the link in future issues. (More on that coming.)

The 2026 Workshop Lineup

Here’s where I’m planning to take things over the next year. These are directional — AI and Notion are both moving, so I’ll evolve with them — but this is the intention:

Dates and topics may shift as Claude and Notion evolve — I'll always send updates in advance.

Why Not Just Buy the Notion Foundations Course?

Honestly? The course is still great for foundations. But this membership is for people who want to keep building — not just learn the basics and figure it out alone.

The ADHD brain often does better with ongoing structure, community check-ins, and the ability to ask “wait, how does THIS work?” in real time. That’s what office hours and live workshops give you that a pre-recorded course can’t.

How to Access the Links

I’m still setting up the Luma event pages for each session — I’ll include the registration links in each issue as the month approaches. So: make sure you’re opening your weekly emails. That’s where the links will live.

For paid subscribers, I’ll also be adding everything to the members-only Notion page. I’ll link that in a future issue once it’s ready.

June 17th Workshop: Your Notion Command Center (Tabstack) — Live on Zoom

In this live workshop, I’ll walk you through the exact Notion setup I use as my personal “command center” — the home base that keeps my tasks, projects, content, and life logistics in one place without feeling overwhelming.

You’ll see my real Tabstack system live (not a polished template), so you can understand how it actually works day-to-day — what I track, how it’s organized, and how I keep it simple enough to maintain. Then we’ll translate that into yourversion of a Notion Command Center that fits your brain and your business.

What we’ll cover

• The core pages + databases that make a command center work (without overbuilding)

• How Tabstack is structured (tabs, dashboards, and “where things live”)

• My workflow for capturing tasks/ideas and turning them into an actual plan

• How to set up a clean weekly view so you always know what matters right now

• Common mistakes that make Notion feel cluttered — and how to avoid them

Who it’s for

• Anyone who’s tried Notion before but didn’t stick with it

• ADHD or “too many tabs open” entrepreneurs who need a central hub

• People who want a usable system, not another aesthetic template

You’ll leave with a clear structure you can copy, a build plan you can finish fast, and the confidence to keep iterating your command center as your life changes.

$10 to join

Included if on the paid substack (discount link below the paywall)

Note: usually they are on the 2nd Wednsesday of the month-this month I had a conflict so it’s on the 3rd Wednesday.

RSVP here

(discount link below the paywall)

June Office Hours

June 3rd, 12pm CST

If you’d like to come to office hours, same pricing structure. $10 for drop in, $5/month included in the membership.

Discount link below the paywall to RSVP

RSVP to Office Hours June 3rd

(discount link below the paywall)

One More Thing

I should mention: because some of these workshops are connected to my podcast, I’m being thoughtful about paywalls. Anything tied to a podcast episode will stay free and open. The paid content will be the live workshops, office hours, and the Notion resource hub.

Fair, I think.

Ready to Join?

If this sounds like the kind of structured-but-flexible support your brain needs, I’d love to have you.

And if you’re already a paid member: thank you. Your workshops and office hours links will be in your inbox every month. See you there.

— Jenna

P.S. Not sure if paid is right for you yet? No pressure. Keep reading for free — I share a lot here. But if you want live access and the ability to actually ask me questions about your setup, the membership is where that happens.

Read more

This episode is part of what I call this podcast the Optimization Toolbox — practical systems for neurodivergent brains.

Because so many of us have the same frustrating experience: you meet someone, you have a genuinely great conversation… and then five minutes later you can’t remember their name.

It’s not because you don’t care. It’s not because you’re “bad at networking.” It’s because names are basically the worst possible input for an ADHD brain: random, context-free information delivered while you’re also trying to manage eye contact, read social cues, and not black out from overstimulation.

And I wanted to talk about it because I think remembering people is a branding skill — not in a fake, “personal brand” way, but in the real way: how people feel after they interact with you. Being remembered (and remembering others) builds trust faster than almost anything.

My angle on “memory” usually lives in the world of messaging and marketing — making ideas memorable, making offers clear, making your brand easy to recognize.

But today’s guest, Bob Miller — former magician, memory speaker, and author of Remember the Room — focuses on something even more human: memorizing people’s names.

We recorded in person at the amazing PodcastCrewMN in Robbinsdale MN.

And instead of giving me “try harder” advice, he gave me what I actually want: a system.

It’s a skill, not a personality flaw

The first thing Bob said when I called remembering names a “gift” — he corrected me immediately.

“It’s a skill,” he said. “I can forget stuff as easily as anybody.”

That matters because most of us have spent years training ourselves to say:

“I’m bad at names.”

“I’m awkward.”

“I’m not a networking person.”

“My brain just doesn’t do that.”

But neurodivergence isn’t a character flaw. It’s an operating system.

And what Bob gave me was essentially this reframe:

If your brain won’t do it automatically, you don’t need more willpower. You need a workflow.

The Look → Listen → Link framework (aka: giving your brain something it can actually hold)

Here’s Bob’s system, and once you hear it, it’s almost annoyingly obvious in the best way.

Look → Listen → Link

Step 1: LOOK

We think we look at people, but we don’t.

When you meet someone, choose one striking feature — the thing that stands out most about their face.

Not clothing. Clothing changes. Faces (mostly) don’t.

This matters for ADHD brains because attention is selective. If you don’t choose a focus point on purpose, your brain will focus on whatever is loudest/fastest/newest — which is usually your own internal monologue.

So: pick the anchor.

Step 2: LISTEN

Bob said something that made me laugh because it’s so true:

Names are basically nonsense words.

What is a Jenna? What is a Bob?

Your brain can’t hold onto a random, abstract sound — especially when you’re also juggling social anxiety, overstimulation, or five competing thoughts.

So the moment you hear a name, your job is to convert it into something visual:

• Bob → a fishing bobber

• Sally → a salad

• Doug → a dog

Is it logical? Not always.

Is it sticky? Yes.

And for a neurodivergent brain, “sticky” beats “proper” every time.

Step 3: LINK

Now connect the two.

Take the image you made for the name and mentally attach it to their striking feature — in the most ridiculous, vivid way you can imagine.

Bob’s rule: weird is memorable. Boring isn’t.

This is so important, because a lot of us try to remember names by being serious about it.

But ADHD brains don’t remember what’s serious.

They remember what’s distinct.

So make it strange on purpose.

The 3 pre-event rituals (because your brain needs a runway)

Before you even walk into a networking event, Bob recommends three things:

Make the decision.

Decide ahead of time: I’m going to work on remembering names today.

Neurodivergent brains do better with intentional “modes.” (Otherwise your brain defaults to survival mode.)

Use the name immediately.

When someone tells you their name, say it back once or twice:

“Nice to meet you, Jenna.”

You’re creating a memory of saying it, not just hearing it.

Review while you’re still there.

Before you leave, scan the room and mentally recite the names of the people you met.

ADHD brains need repetition closer to the moment or it evaporates.

Memory is the tool. Connection is the goal. (And this is the part ND folks deeply get)

This was the line that stuck with me most:

“The memory is just the tool that allows you to make that connection.”

Because if you’re neurodivergent, you probably don’t struggle with caring about people.

You struggle with the mechanics:

• recall

• follow-up

• consistency

• the “admin work” of relationships

You can be warm and brilliant and genuine… and still forget someone’s name five minutes later.

So the goal isn’t “be a person who always remembers names.”

The goal is: build a system that makes people feel remembered.

My Notion CRM “database move” (because I don’t want my brain to be the storage unit)

Bob told me that after events he collects business cards and puts notes into a database:

• name

• striking feature

• key facts they shared

• any context for follow-up

He said:

“I can forget it once it’s in my database.”

And I felt personally called out, because… same.

This is exactly why I use Notion as a CRM. Not because I’m trying to be “optimized,” but because I’m trying to be kind to my future self.

Here’s what’s true for my ADHD brain:

If it lives in my head, it will disappear.

If it lives in a system, it becomes reliable.

So after I meet someone, I do a quick “capture” inside Notion:

• who they are

• how we met

• what they do

• anything personal they shared

• what I want to follow up about

• and (this is key) when I want to follow up

Notion becomes the second brain for my relationships — which means my relationships don’t have to depend on perfect memory.

The part nobody tells you: follow-up is a neurodivergent superpower when it’s systemized

A lot of people think networking is about being charismatic.

I think networking is about being consistent.

And consistency is hard when your brain is:

• time blind

• novelty-seeking

• easily overwhelmed

• allergic to “I’ll do it later”

So instead of trying to become a different person, I build systems that do the remembering for me.

That’s what a CRM is supposed to be.

Not “salesy.” Not corporate.

Just: a way to continue the conversation like a human.

Try this today

Next time you meet someone:

• Convert their name into an image (Listen)

• Anchor it to one feature (Look)

• Make it weird (Link)

Afterward: write one line somewhere external

(your Notes app, a Post-it, Notion, whatever)

Because the win isn’t “remember forever.”

The win is: don’t lose the connection.

Want my Notion setup for this?

If you’ve been thinking, “Okay I love this… but I need the system,” that’s exactly why I built Tabstack — my Notion template for tracking content + follow-ups in a way that actually works for a neurodivergent brain.

It’s designed to help you capture people + context quickly, keep your relationship momentum, and stop relying on your memory to do the heavy lifting.

If you want to turn “I should follow up with them” into an actual workflow, check out Tabstack here: https://course.jennaredfield.com/life-tracker/

If you’ve been calling yourself a freelancer but it never quite felt right, there’s a good chance you’re actually doing something called fractional work — and there’s a real difference between the two.

I recently recorded an episode of the Optimization Toolbox Podcast with , who runs Voyager University and is one of the leading voices on fractional work in the country. We talked for almost an hour about what fractional work actually is, why it’s growing fast, and what it means for people building solo businesses right now.

Here’s what I took away.

What is fractional work?

Fractional work is permanent part-time. You work with a client on an ongoing basis — not as a full-time employee, not as a project-based consultant — but as their embedded expert for a set number of hours per week. Usually around 10 hours, sometimes across two or three clients at once.

The key word is permanent. Unlike freelancing, which tends to be project-to-project, fractional relationships are long-term. You’re not just completing a deliverable — you’re functioning as a part-time version of a role the company needs but can’t justify hiring full-time.

Common fractional roles include fractional CMO, fractional COO, fractional marketing director, and fractional operations lead.

Fractional vs. freelancing: what’s the difference?

This is the question I asked John right away because honestly the line felt blurry to me.

The short version: freelancing is episodic, fractional is stable.

Freelancers typically work on projects with a clear start and end. The work is done, you move on, you find the next client. It’s unpredictable by nature.

Fractional work is ongoing. You’re not selling a project — you’re selling your expertise applied consistently over time. Companies get a senior-level person without the full-time cost. You get stable, recurring income without the 40-hour week.

John describes it as fractional heaven vs. purgatory. Purgatory is the feast-or-famine cycle most freelancers know too well. Heaven is consistent clients, work in your zone of genius, and income that reflects your actual value.

Why fractional work is growing in 2026

A few things are driving this:

Companies are realizing they don’t need 40 hours of your expertise. They need your sharpest thinking applied consistently. A startup doesn’t need a full-time CMO — they need someone senior-level guiding their marketing strategy for 10 hours a week. That’s fractional.

The traditional job market is harder than ever for experienced professionals. John shared a stat that stopped me: only 24% of people over 50 who leave a job will find a new one at the same pay level. Fractional gives experienced professionals a direct path to monetize their expertise without competing in a difficult hiring market.

AI is accelerating the shift. As AI handles more tactical work, what companies actually need is senior-level thinking, judgment, and relationships — exactly what fractional professionals provide.

What this means if you’re a solopreneur

Here’s the practical takeaway for anyone running a solo business:

If you work with clients on an ongoing basis, apply your expertise in a specific area, and operate in a part-time capacity — you’re probably already doing fractional work. You just might not be packaging or pricing it that way.

The difference between freelancing and fractional often comes down to how you position yourself. Fractional professionals aren’t selling hours or deliverables — they’re selling a role. That shift in framing tends to lead to longer client relationships, more stable income, and higher rates.

John’s framework for building a fractional business starts with what he calls your inner nerd — your specific combination of fascinations, skills, and obsessions that make you the go-to person in your lane. The clearer you are on that, the easier it is to attract the right clients and charge what your expertise is worth.

The biggest barrier to going fractional

Spoiler: it’s not skills or experience. According to John, the two biggest barriers are:

1. Health insurance — the lack of portable, affordable benefits keeps a lot of people tied to full-time employment even when they’d rather be independent. John is actively working on solutions in this space.

2. Mindset — specifically, unlearning the idea that your value is measured in hours worked. That’s a hard reset for a lot of people, but John says it’s faster than most expect once you’re in the right environment.

Listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or above on Youtube or on this webpage

Want to build better systems for your solo business? Join me Wednesday 👇

If this resonated and you’re thinking about how to actually structure a solopreneur business that works with your brain — come to my workshop this Wednesday.

Notion + Claude for ADHD Brains 📅 Wednesday, May 13th · 12:00–1:00 PM CT · Zoom

We’re going hands-on with how to use Notion and Claude together as a practical system for running your business — task management, client work, content, all of it. Built specifically for ADHD and neurodivergent solopreneurs.

→ $10 general admission — grab your spot here

→ Free for paid Substack subscribers — promo code is just below the paywall. $5/month gets you into every workshop and office hour going forward.

Claude & Notion for ADHD Workshop for Paid Subscribers

May 13th 12pm CST

https://luma.com/u319x0l5?coupon=REDTOOLBOX

DISCOUNT CODE: REDTOOLBOX

See you Wednesday.

— Jenna

Tomorrow I’m hosting Office Hours — and next week I’m teaching a brand new workshop: Notion + Claude for ADHD Brains

If you want the details + access info, scroll to the bottom of this post

I've been using Notion for years. I've built templates, sold templates, and taught thousands of people how to use Notion to organize their entire lives. And a few months ago, I looked at my own setup and thought: this isn't working anymore.

So I did the thing that felt both terrifying and completely necessary — I rebuilt everything.

The result is TABStack OS: a life and business command center built around Notion’s newest feature, and honestly the best system I’ve ever used. Here’s the full walkthrough.

Why “Tab Stack”?

Notion recently released a tabs feature — think of it like browser tabs, but inside your Notion pages. You can even stack tabs within tabs (hence: Tab Stack). For a brain that tends to have seventeen things open at once, this changed the game for me.

Instead of navigating through a maze of nested pages to find what I need, everything now lives on one home screen. I can flip between my to-do list, CRM, and content calendar without losing my place. It sounds simple. It is simple. That’s the point.

DOWNLOAD HERE

The Six Sections of Tab Stack OS

Tasks

This is your business brain. Inside Tasks, you’ll find:

• To-Do List — filtered by project type so you see only what’s relevant (home tasks vs. content tasks vs. client work)

• CRM — clients, leads, contact status, birthdays

• Projects — webinars, courses, services, anything you’re building

• Events & Calls — auto-populated when someone books a call via Notion’s scheduling integration

• Recurring — my personal favorite for ADHD brains. Things to restock, renew (hello, LLC filing), refill, and do daily. No more “wait, when was I supposed to do that?”

• Goals — built around the G.O.A.L.S. framework, plus an achievements tracker, lifelong dreams list, and a skills-I-want-to-learn dashboard

Health

Grocery list, recipes (use Notion AI to build them from whatever’s in your fridge), supplements tracker, weight log, fitness, sleep, and a skincare tracker with cycle phase tracking. I also now use Claude on my iPhone to pull data from Apple Health directly into Notion — genuinely one of my favorite workflows right now.

Content

A full brand strategy page you can fill out for your own business (I’m doing a separate video on this), individual content calendars for YouTube, Shorts, LinkedIn, and podcasting, plus a marketing campaign tracker so you can see progress across a launch.

Resources (Knowledge Vault)

This is where the real nerds live. My 13-pillar knowledge system, books with AI-generated tables of contents, articles saved via the Notion web clipper, PDFs, journaling prompts, quotes, frameworks, and more. If you don’t know where something lives in your Notion, it’s probably here.

Personal

Closet planner with images (yes, really), shopping lists organized by category, savings tracker, chore list with decluttering frameworks, room-by-room home dashboards, and a “things to sell” database for when you finally declutter.

Entertainment

TV shows, movies, podcasts, and creators — all tracked by priority and status. Because yes, your leisure time deserves a system too.

The ADHD Case for Tab Stack

Here’s what makes this different from a pretty Notion template you’ll customize once and never touch again: it’s built for how ADHD brains actually navigate information.

The tabs mean you don’t lose your place. The filtered views mean you only see what’s relevant right now. The recurring checklist means you stop relying on memory for things that need to happen on a schedule. And the fact that everything lives on one home page means there’s no “I forgot I had that database” problem.

This isn’t about being more productive. It’s about building a system that removes friction so your brain can do what it’s actually good at.

Last week I got to do something that genuinely lights me up — teaching Notion in person.

I ran workshops at the AI Summit and Minnebar, and it was one of those “oh yeah, this is why I do what I do” weeks.

There’s something different about being in the room with people as they build systems in real time — watching the moment their brain goes from “I’m overwhelmed” to “wait… I can actually see how this can work for me.”

How to Get The TABStack Template

TABStack OS is $47 and available at jennaRedfield.com/systems/notion or directly here https://course.jennaredfield.com/life-tracker/

If you bought my old ADHD Life Tracker template — this is the upgrade. Redownload it. You’ll want to start fresh.

Office Hours (tomorrow): Wednesday, May 6 · 12:00–1:00 PM CT

RSVP Here

Workshop (next week):

Notion + Claude for ADHD Brains

RSVP Here

Free for Paid Subcribers (code below)

$10 for Everyone Else

If you are paid subscriber, you get a discount code for both Office Hours and the workshop below the paywall.

Read more

If you’ve been following along, you know I talk a lot about Notion and Claude — how I use them in my business, how I recommend them to clients, and why I think they’re genuinely the most powerful combo for entrepreneurs who want to work smarter without burning out.

So I’m finally doing something I’ve been wanting to do for a while: I’m launching a monthly workshop series dedicated entirely to Claude + Notion.

Each month, we go deep on one topic — practical, hands-on, no fluff. You walk away with something you can actually use that day.

The first one is happening May 13th at noon CST.

https://luma.com/u319x0l5

Topic: Notion + Claude for ADHD Brains: Practical Uses That Actually Stick

If you have ADHD (or just an ADHD-style brain), most productivity systems weren’t built for you. They’re too rigid, too manual, or too much to maintain. This workshop is specifically about what actually works when your brain doesn’t follow the rules.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• How to use Claude to build and fill out Notion pages without starting from scratch every time

• Brain-dump-to-action prompts for scattered days when you can’t get started

• ADHD-friendly Notion structures that are low-maintenance by design

• Using Claude as a thinking partner for decisions, planning, and getting unstuck

• How to apply all of this to your business — content, clients, projects, and more

• Live Q&A at the end

It’s a live Zoom session and spots are limited.

How the monthly rhythm works

I wanted to create something consistent and affordable — not a one-off event, but an actual ongoing resource.

Here’s what I’ve got running every month:

🗓 Monthly Office Hours — every first Wednesday of the month at noon CST. Bring your Notion or Claude questions, get live help, and learn alongside other people doing the same thing. Included with all Substack Paid Subscribers. $10 for Drop ins.

RSVP for our next one here

🎓 Monthly Workshops — focused, topic-driven sessions like this one. $10 per workshop for anyone who wants to drop in. Or, if you’re a paid subscriber here on Substack ($5/month), you get a promo code each month to attend for free.
We will plan these to usually be the 2nd Wednesday of the month at noon CST. Replays will be available to paid subscribers.

The math is pretty simple: one workshop a month paid individually costs $10. A paid subscription costs $5/month and gets you into every workshop & office hour free. If you’re planning to show up regularly, subscribing just makes sense.

Upcoming workshop topics will include:

• Content creation with Claude + Notion

• Building a client system that actually runs itself

• Using Claude for business planning and decision-making

• Notion for personal productivity (not just business)

• And more — I’ll be taking requests from subscribers

Ready to join for May 13th?

General admission is $10 — grab your spot on Luma below.

Or, if you want to get in free and lock in access to every future workshop: become a paid subscriber below for $5/month. Your promo code for this workshop is waiting for you right after the paywall. 👇

RSVP

Read more

Notion vs Claude vs Notion AI: Which One Do You Open?

The “house, car, cleaner, work van” metaphor that makes the whole AI stack finally click.

If you’ve ever stared at your screen like, “Okay… do I open Notion AI, Claude, or Cowork right now?” this is for you.

For the last few years, my entire life and business has lived inside Notion.

And lately I’ve been deep in the Claude ecosystem too.

So when I say these tools are doing different jobs, I’m not being dramatic. I’m trying to save you from the most common “AI overwhelm” loop:

• You download a new tool.

• You try to use it for everything.

• You get confused.

• You stop using all of them.

Instead, here’s the simplest framework I’ve found that actually works for an ADHD brain.

I want you to picture four roles:

• Notion is your house.

  • It’s where everything lives.

  • Plans, routines, content calendar, notes, docs, systems.

  • It is the place you come home to.

• Claude is your car.

  • It’s where you go to think.

  • You take a “long drive” when your brain is scattered and you need to talk something through.

  • Claude helps you untangle the messy draft, find the thread, and come back with a clear next step.

• Notion AI is your cleaner.

  • The cleaner works inside the house.

  • Notion AI can summarize what happened, pull action items from meeting notes, find the thing you forgot, and help maintain your system without you doing all the manual cleanup.

• Claude Cowork is your work van.

  • This is the one that shows up and actually does the work on your computer.

  • Not “a plan to organize your Downloads folder.”

  • It goes into the folder and organizes it.

Once you see it like that, the question gets way easier:

Do I need to LIVE, THINK, or DO right now?

A good system is not the hard part.

The hard part is maintenance.

This is where my 13 Pillars system comes in.

If you want to go deeper on the 13 Pillars framework, check it out here

For years I’ve organized everything into 13 life categories so my Notion workspace and my file system match.

The categories stay stable.

My brain gets less decisions.

But maintenance still used to be the dread part.

Then I tried Cowork.

I literally told it to organize my Downloads folder into my 13 Pillars, and watching it do it felt like magic.

Folders inside folders. Files routed correctly. Client stuff recognized as client stuff.

And the bigger point is this:

• Notion helps you store and find.

• Claude helps you think and decide.

• Notion AI helps you maintain your house.

• Cowork helps you execute the boring tasks that derail your week.

Different tools. Different jobs.

Same goal: a system that works with your brain.

If you want the quick version, I broke this down in a YouTube video you can watch here:

And if you want a great Cowork walkthrough, here’s Sabrina Romanov’s Claude Cowork masterclass & more on how to use Claude Cowork to organize your files.

And if you haven’t yet, join my free Substack (it’s where I send the weekly “this will actually help your brain” tools + systems):

The Optimization Toolbox by Jenna Redfield

The Optimization Toolbox shares frameworks, Notion strategies, growth systems, AI tools, and digital organization so you can build a business and life that work with your brain. New video or podcast every Tuesday.

Talk soon,

Jenna

📘 Ready to Master Notion?

Notion F.O.U.N.D.A.T.I.O.N.S. Course — $97

https://notionfoundations.com/

💡 Need 1:1 Help?

Untangle Clarity Call — 90 minutes

https://redthreadstudiomn.com/clarity

I got asked to speak at the Neurodivergent Business Summit online next week, and I said yes before I even finished reading the email.

A virtual room full of ADHD and neurodivergent entrepreneurs building businesses that actually work for their brains? That is exactly who I build for.

My session is called ChatGPT for ADHD — but here’s the thing: I made the whole presentation AI-agnostic. Because while I was building it, I quietly switched AI tools entirely.

So today I want to tell you about the summit, what I’m teaching, and the behind-the-scenes shift I’ve been sitting with for the last few weeks.

👉 The summit is free — grab your spot here

My Talk: Custom AI for ADHD Brains (Inside Notion)

The session is officially called ChatGPT for ADHD, but the real talk is about building custom AI setups inside Notion that actually match how your brain works — not how productivity gurus wish it did.

Here’s what we’re covering:

• Why generic AI prompts tend to fall flat for ND brains — and what to do instead

• How to build custom AI setups inside Notion that match your thinking style

• The specific ways I use AI to handle executive function tasks that drain me most: starting projects, processing decisions, and reducing the “what do I do next” spiral

It’s practical, Notion-heavy, and built for real ADHD brains.

Also — small behind-the-scenes note: this is my first time building a full presentation in Notion Presentation Mode, so it’s a little bare bones. But the content is genuinely good, and I’d rather give you something real than something just polished for its own sake.

Why I Switched from ChatGPT to Claude

Here’s what I haven’t talked about publicly yet: I cancelled my $20/month ChatGPT subscription and switched to Claude.

I actually tried both tools around the same time originally, and back then Claude felt a little clunky to me. But I got deep into ChatGPT-world and didn’t realize how much Claude had improved — until it started coming up constantly in my AI circles. I finally went back, tested it properly, and… yeah. I don’t regret it at all.

The shift that made the biggest difference is how well Claude works with Notion.

The way I think about it: Notion is the container where all your work lives — projects, notes, tasks, decisions. Claude is the thinking partner that can hold all of that in mind at once and help you move through it without starting from scratch every session.

Notion and Claude are actively building toward this together — there’s a whole partnership page here: notion.com/partners/claude. The direction is clear: Notion becomes the place the work lives, Claude becomes the thing that helps you actually move it forward.

For an ADHD brain, that combo is exactly what most of us need: fewer tabs, less context switching, and more “tell it once, then let it help.”

If you are new to Claude and Claude Cowork, my friend did an awesome training on it here

Also if you are in the Twin Cities area my friend Caroline and her crew from are hosting a Claude workshop at the end of April! Check that out here

What Makes Claude Specifically Better for ADHD Brains

Here’s what I’m actually noticing after a few weeks of daily use:

• Bigger memory, less re-explaining: Claude holds significantly more context in a single conversation than ChatGPT. For a brain that loses momentum the moment it has to repeat itself, this is a genuine game-changer.

• Follows complex instructions in one pass: Claude handles multi-step, layered instructions more reliably without needing correction loops. Fewer “no, I meant this“ moments — which is real cognitive load savings.

• More honest, less agreeable: ChatGPT has a tendency to validate everything. Claude will gently push back. For an ADHD brain that sometimes needs a thinking partner to poke holes in an idea rather than just cheer it on, this is actually useful.

• Works with your system, not against it: Claude adapts to your structure. If your Notion setup has a specific logic or format, Claude works within it instead of reformatting everything into its own style.

• Better executive function support: It’s better at turning a messy brain dump into a prioritized list, a draft, or a clear next step — fast.

• Less context switching: Keep everything anchored in Notion. Claude helps you act on it without bouncing between ten tabs.

• One more thing — Claude Cowork: This is newer, and I’m still exploring it, but the idea is that you’re not just chatting with AI — you’re doing the work with it in a way that sticks around and can be reused. For ADHD brains, that turns “figure out what to do next” into “pick a task, run the co-work, move forward.”

What About Notion AI?

I get this question a lot, so: I’m not ditching Notion AI.

Here’s how I’m thinking about the two right now:

• Claude: Faster for back-and-forth thinking, better on mobile, great for momentum when I’m on the go and just need to move something forward.

• Notion AI: Slower, but more powerful when I need to work directly inside my Notion workspace — especially when it comes to turning content into actual changes in my system.

My biggest frustration with Notion AI is speed. Claude isn’t instant either, but it’s noticeably faster for simple, real-time questions. Notion AI also isn’t as good with connected apps like Claude is. If you’re mostly living in ChatGPT right now, my recommendation: try Claude, connect it to your Notion, and do the same things you’d normally do — but with your full Notion context available. It will change how you work.

I also want to do a full video walkthrough on this soon, especially the ADHD-friendly workflows and scheduling side — there’s way more here than fits in one email.

Come to the Summit

If you’ve ever felt like most business advice was written for a brain that isn’t yours — this summit is for you.

It’s free, it’s built specifically for ND entrepreneurs, and I’d genuinely love to see you in the room.

👉 Register here — it’s free

And if you make it to my session, come say hi afterward. I want to know what resonates — and what questions it sparks.

More Notion + Claude content is coming over the next few weeks. You’re in the right place for it.

Jenna