Transcription
So, last week I went to organize all of the files on my computer and in cloud, you know, like a responsible adult who definitely has his digital life together. Uh and there was just an enormous amount of untitled documents and folders named new strategy or final version three and then in brackets like no, this is the real final one and I'm just staring at this mess and it dawns on me that AI isn't doing what I want it to do, but not because AI is the problem. It's It's It's me. I'm the problem. All of my disorganized folders, disorganized thoughts, every duplicate was like an unfinished thought. And everyone, including myself, keeps asking AI, you know, what tools are the best or how can I leverage AI, but maybe there's a better question and maybe there's a more helpful question, which is like what is AI showing us about ourselves? Because there's this really cool thing that is happening as I externalize all of my thinking by using AI, I can start to see how it is I think. And most people's maps, including my own, looks like a junk drawer with a search bar. And so I really I really wanted to get organized. Bob Proctor used to have this saying, he said, "Organization is heaven's first law." And the more that I learn about AI, the more I learn about um AI and how tokens get spent, uh how important being organized really is. And so in this video, I'm going to share with you a very simple folder structure that has really changed everything. Um it makes the AI outputs way better. I spend way less on tokens. It impacts not just my tools and my communities, but really my whole business and really my whole way of life because it impacts the way that I'm thinking. And it it maps to the head, the hands, and the heart. All right? And so in this video, I'm going to share some resources and help you think better. All right, let's go.
So, by going through this process and developing a system to stay organized, I discovered something. I discovered some insights that will forever change the way that I use AI. It will forever change the way that I think. And I've started to see this pattern now show up in the Claude app, in second brain building videos, and now it's actually showing up in how I'm building schools. So, it's very interesting pattern. I'm going to share that with you in this video. But, uh before I do, I'm going to go through this document. And if you want to copy this document, there's probably a link for it underneath this video. And uh in here, I've put together a skill that you can get access to. It's in our free community here. You can just click here to join. It's in the bonus section under Claude skills. And that skill is going to help you automatically stay organized. Claude will scrape your chats, your folders, and kind of once a week just do a clean-up and help you to stay organized. All right. So, if you want that, it's just on this document.
So, let's talk about how this even came to be. You know, I've I've been building now with AI for a couple years. Uh really deeply for the last 6 months. And it's gotten to a point where just like the sheer volume of thoughts, ideas, projects are is there's it's just a lot. And I realized that most of it was disorganized. And I kept going into YouTube to learn about how to build a second brain thinking that that will help me stay organized. So, I'm learning about Obsidian and and seeing all these cool things. And but then I'm realizing uh a second brain sounds nice, but actually my first brain needs to get organized first. I need to get the foundations organized first before I start thinking about building like the second brain. And what's become obvious the more that I build is just really the the thoughts are externalized on my computer, on my file folders, the way that I think is becoming more obvious in the way that things are showing up in my computer, in my Notion, on my file um folders. And it wasn't really working. It was costing me a lot of money. Like I was spending I was like, "Why is it costing so much uh for API tokens?" Um W- Why is AI not giving me the output that I want? Like it shouldn't be this difficult and things like that. And um it's also taking taking really long and I I forget about ideas and it's just not organized. And so uh this was becoming more of a problem. Like it wasn't really a problem until it was. And so what I did was I just stopped. So I stopped building for a second. I was like, "If I keep going, it's just going to get messier and messier and it's not going to work." Then I and then, you know, I'm meditating, I'm thinking about this. I just stopped building for just like a day. And it occurred to me just that this is a reflection of my own cluttered mind and my own disorganized thinking. And so then I found uh this guy Jake Van Cleef uh and he has a school community. And he has this paper and it's super academic. Not my cup of tea. But it's really great and it has a the the idea behind it is basically stop building agents. Just get better at file folder structure. I was like, "Okay." So I put this into Claude as I explain this to me in English. It did. Yes, I kept it really simple. Uh and then also I found I was looking at this guy >> 44 super agents. >> Uh Nick careful Milo. Uh he's talking about Obsidian and second brains. And what I uh there there's this pattern of just like simplicity of file folder structure. They both have these folder structures of of three. And my adaptation to it is the first layer is Atlas, okay? And so this is your thinking layer folder. So this is where all of your raw materials, your ideas, where you capture ideas, like if you're going for a walk, you're like, "Oh, I got an idea." You you need a spot to capture those ideas and go back to. Or if you're working on a strategy or something. Then the next folder is projects. And so this is where you're actively building things. So this is where content would go. I can actually show you in Notion. So for example, in Notion I used to have all these dashboards and all these, you know, databases. And now I have three folders. And I have Atlas, which is for my thinking. I have got projects, things that I'm actively working on. And then I have end products, which are things that are are complete. And that's it. That's the whole file structure. And then once I started to organize my folders this way, my thinking started to fall in line. And it it was it was obvious that normally in my day, I'm only really doing one of those three things and need access to one of those three ways of being or folders, which is I'm either thinking or I'm building something or I am using the things that I've built to serve for other people. And and then I started using Claude and I saw Claude in a different way. So let me pull up the app. Right? So Claude kind of in its own way has three file folders. Well, they have three ways in which you can use Claude really. So they have chat, right? You have chat. And what is chat really good for? Chat is great for thinking. You need to get an idea out, you need to just think about it and put it into a document or flush it out. That's what chat is for. So, that's where all the thinking goes. And then co-work. What is co-work good for? Co-work's good for projects. This is where you actually are building the things and you're you're building artifacts or you're building plans. And then when it comes time to creating like a finished product, something that's actually done, the best tool for that is using Claude code. And so, then I you start to see it's like, "Oh, okay, interesting. They've got thinking, building, and end products." It's like, "Okay, interesting. There's like a similarity." This is how you build second brains. This is how you me as a human thinks. Uh Claude, that pattern is there. And then I realized like as my file folder structure has been getting more clear, I'm looking out at my world, and even my school communities fall into that same file folder structure now, because I have three school communities. So, what are those three school communities? I have a free community, Lifestyle Founders Group. This is where I am thinking. I'm sharing ideas. Then I have Claude for coaches. This is a paid community where I'm actively building things in workshops, and I'm these are my projects. As the projects complete, I move them into my VIP community, which is the end product. This is where the end products all land. Interesting. So, the file folder structure the thinking in my head has now been externalized into a very simple file folder where I'm only doing one of these three things. I'm either thinking, building, or um uh my end products exist. That's also the same for how I use Claude. I'm either thinking, building, or creating my end products. And it's also where my school community how my school communities are set up. Super interesting. And so once I had that clarity, uh everything like keeping organized is very easy. It's like, "What is this?" Oh, well, this is a thinking project or this is a building project. And couple like frameworks is there's the head, there's the hands for building, and then there's the heart. It's like, "What do you What's the end product?" It's the thing that you can offer to the world. It's the thing that you can use to help other people with. The mirror principle is where this whole thing started, which is as above, so below. You know, your What's the James Allen quote? He thinks in secret, it comes to pass, environment is but his looking glass. It's like, "This is I I really think AI is here to teach us about ourselves." There's like for a video for another time is like if you think about how to build an agent, what does an agent need? Needs an identity, it needs context, and it needs skills. This is literally how you change your life. You change the identity that you have, you develop new skills, and you create a new context or a new story for yourself. So like, I I really just think AI is here to help us be better humans. At least it's it's it's becoming more obvious to me. And um I think there was like a quote here that uh the co-founder of OpenAI uh who just now I think partnered with um with Claude or Anthropic described a future where the core human skill isn't coding or executing, it is directing. So everyone becomes a manager of AI, and the bottleneck isn't the tool, it's the clarity of your thinking. Your cognitive architecture is now your competitive advantage, meaning the better that you think, the more value you can bring because of the way that you use AI. Right, so it it it's going to pay to become a better thinker.
Now, a couple uh beliefs that I think people like ways of thinking that are keeping people stuck and not becoming better thinkers is this idea that like I just need a better tool to get the thing done. But, that is like I thought I need a second brain. I bet maybe I'll use Obsidian, maybe I'll use The answer was I actually just need to get better organization in my own head and in my own file folder structure. Organization is a is a waste of creative time. Maybe like it takes too much time to be organized. But, Bob Proctor had that quote. It's like organization is heaven's first law. Organization is what allows you to be creative, and it actually is way faster. And if you look at how AI uses it, it's just like when the file folders are clear and structured and AI knows exactly where to go to get the skill, get the context, or whatever it is that you're pointing it towards, it happens so fast and it's way less money if you're using API. Most are not, but I was like building agents for context and it was costing me a lot of money because of my disorganization. AI does the thinking for me. Yes, AI can help you think. And there's probably people who are just copy-pasting AI stuff. But, AI is also revealing how you think. If you look at what you're creating and and what's coming how your folders and thoughts are showing up on your computer, AI is also revealing how you're thinking. It's not just replacing the act of thinking. Something genius about school is that it's simple. And I think that's why people like it. But, I talked to Sam when I went to the school games. And he was just showing and talking about how much complexity goes into making something work and and be simple. Another thing is I talk about the sophistication trap. I work with a lot of very smart people and because you're so smart you can see lots of different ways that you can do things. And this is where like there's a sophistication trap because in order to get the thing that you most likely want it's like it's way simpler than you're making it out to be. Um but we love to overcomplicate things especially if you're smart. And so it's like a humbling experience to to just be like well this that's very simple. But simple is like the whole point. And and so anyways this file folder structure of like head hands heart you know you have thinking you have building you have the end product. And structuring this not just in my file folders but seeing that like that's actually how I now use Claude and that's actually now how my school communities are set up. There's an organization that is happening in my own head that I can see very tangibly externally out in my file folders in the way that my business is being structured and it's giving me a lot of freedom and um and so just to recap on this little idea of of how to structure you know file folders is your file structure is a map of your cognitive architecture. Most people's maps are like a junk drawer with a search bar but you can like three folders can just radically simplify all of your thinking. And by the way like you can just ask Claude you can use the clean up skill or you can ask Claude like hey can you organize my files first of all and then ask it to organize it through Atlas project and and product. All right the whole AI conversation, what can AI do for me? Is, yes, that's part of it, but also another question you can ask is like, what is AI revealing to you about yourself or about how you think? And fix the inside, the outside follows, as above, so below. This is just a little file, you know, a a conversation I've had with myself where I've seen a tremendous um, a value in simplifying how everything is set up, and it literally is changing the structure of my school communities, the way that I think, and the way that my desktop looks. And it's a very simple thing. So, anyways, if you want this, uh, resource, the link is underneath. Like, comment, subscribe, join our free community. Uh, thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next video.