Family Photo:
Plans

Happy New Year!
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What are your plans for 2026?

I started the year with some AI-assisted planning. Personal planning won't transform the economy, but we invested $400 Billion on AI capex in 2025, I might as well get some benefit while the tokens are still cheap.

My ultra-precise initial prompt:

From there, I brain dumped thoughts, feelings, concerns, hopes and dreams across the domains of Family, Health, Cooptimize (professional development), and Creativity (personal development).

It was a pleasant exercise. I found it easier to get into a flow typing into a chatbot window than into a blank document. The stakes felt lower. A voice in my mind kept saying "don't worry if your input is perfect, just keep typing...besides, the AI will polish your thoughts in the end." It was like having a future-forward Anne Lamott hologram sitting on my laptop, cheering me to finish my Shitty First Draft. Then, instead of editing my SFD, I just prompted, "summarize this into bullet points. make some suggestions."

I did this first in ChatGPT, but copy/pasted the same inputs into multiple chatbots to see how their outputs compared. Most of the benefit came from my own personal reflection and thinking, not the summarization.

Some additional thoughts:
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​ChatGPT 5.2: I use ChatGPT the most day-to-day, so this felt like the control group in the experiment. Good summarization, abundant em-dashes. Standard ChatGPT stuff.

Copilot: Similar to ChatGPT. This should be no surprise, because Copilot basically runs a flavor of ChatGPT. I don't like the flavor, but it might just be familiarity—like unexpectedly drinking a Diet Coke. It feels like Copilot tries too hard on formatting...lots of extra bolding and sub-bullet points. Felt like Copilot was really hoping it would get to create a PowerPoint presentation. That's OK Microsoft, I'll take it from here.

Gemini: Gemini Pro is very good. I was especially impressed with its integration with Google Calendar. As we discussed birthdays and school holidays, Gemini Pro proactively asked and then created them as Google Calendar events. AI is all about context, and between Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Photos, YouTube, and Search, who has more of my context than Google? I think Google is well positioned for the AI Agent Wars of 2026.
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​Claude Code: I'm really liking the experience of typing into the Terminal. The minimal aesthetic minimizes distractions, which is pleasant, conducive to productivity, and coincidentally feels like the exact opposite of what Copilot is going for. I'm enjoying the flow of an AI application that directly modifies files on my computer, and its planning mode is very powerful (for development tasks, I didn't use it in my 2026 plan experiment).

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That's all for now. We also just got back from a family trip to Mexico. It had its own planning considerations.

I'll catch you up on that next week.

Dad Joke:
Sketch Plans

Source: Twonks​

Highlights:
Sketchy Plans

​50 Years of Travel Tips by Kevin Kelly​

​What good goals look like by Michael Siliski​

​Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig​

iamJoshKnox Highlights:

A Noiseless Patient Spider | Walt Whitman

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Until next week,
​iamJoshKnox​​

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