The unsexy bit of using AI nobody's making reels about

I watched Judy, my accounts admin person, finish her morning report in 5 minutes today.

It used to take her ninety… 90 minutes.

Same job. Same accuracy. She just clicked open the file, scanned it for weird stuff, found none, then went and started on something else.

I sat there grinning like a child.

I want to tell you what made that possible because it’s not the bit you’d think.

It’s not the script that does her report. That’s the easy bit. Claude can knock that out on a Tuesday afternoon.

It’s the two weeks of unsexy work that came before it.

For two weeks I’ve been sitting in my office at home, madly building what’s basically a second brain for the business.

Every process. Every SOP. Every connection to the things that make our business work.

All written down. All connected. Sitting on my computer in a system that keeps itself fresh.

I know how that sounds. Folders. Files. Documentation.

Nobody’s making reels about this.

But here’s what’s been on my mind…

Most of what I see online with AI right now is the fun bit.

The “look what I got AI to do” bit.

Someone builds a chatbot, films it, posts it, mates go “oh sick”, move on.

Their business is unchanged.

I did this in week one. Built a few cool things to see what was possible. But realised quickly that in isolation, these shiny things aren’t gonna make the needle move.

What moved a number was sitting down for a few hours every day and compiling every important thing in my head, email, Drive, Shopify, you name it… into a system.

So when I ask it a question or want to build something useful, it sees the whole board like I do as the owner.

If it can’t see the whole board, it’s just guessing and being a ‘yes man’ (ChatGPT).

Once that’s in, the boring wins start showing up. Like Judy’s ninety minutes. Tomorrow it’ll be someone else’s hour. The week after, a whole process to 10x what we do now and compound over time.

Two weeks ago I would’ve called this boring. Eh, maybe you will, too.

But today it’s the most useful thing I’ve made in a long time.

— Matthew