A maker’s journal that keeps going
Talk about your week for a few minutes. Your AI turns it into the next numbered part of your journal, and often a few more posts. You approve every one.
Why journals stop
The first post is easy: you’re excited, and there’s a story to tell. The fifth comes in a busy week when nothing feels worth saying, so it slips. One missed week becomes two, and the journal quietly ends.
The week wasn’t empty, though. Something shipped, something broke, you changed your mind about something. Ask anyone how their week went and they can talk for five minutes. Writing it up is what doesn’t happen.
How it works
- Make it a series. In Tamable, a series is numbered: Building Tamable #1, #2, #3. Tamable adds the number as the first line when it posts, so your AI never has to. And a public #3 promises a #4.
- Talk about your week. Your AI interviews you: what happened, what you learned, what didn’t work, how you feel about it. Answer out loud, long and messy. Tamable saves what you say as ideas, in your own words.
- One answer, more than one post. Your AI finds the next part of the journal in what you said, and often a few posts of their own too, each filed under the project it belongs to.
- Read and approve. The draft adds nothing you didn’t say. Leave a note on any line you want changed, then approve it for the date the series’ rhythm suggests.
- The blog, later. A part that gets replies can earn a longer blog post 1 to 3 weeks later, with the fuller story and what people said.
A real one
The first part of Building Tamable came from one interview answer about why I brought Tamable back, about four minutes of talking. Here are a few lines of it, exactly as my dictation app typed them, and part of the thread that went out.
Well I’ve always enjoyed writing. As you know I used to have a blog for Rippler where I shared the journey of building it. I also have my private blog, or personal blog. I tried times to write for Twitter and even built a Kanban board for Twitter tweets and threads called Tweetboard.
My brain is kind of chaotic. I have lots of thoughts, lots of things that I would love to cover and talk about. Every time that I do write something manually, it takes me ages to get finished with it because it takes me a long time to write the first finished draft.
…so I decided to repurpose Tamable because Tamable already had a really nice text editor built in, tip-top.
I’ve always enjoyed writing. I used to share the journey of building Ripplr on its blog, I have my personal blog, and I’ve tried writing for Twitter a few times (I even built Tweetboard, a Kanban board for tweets and threads).
So I repurposed Tamable. It started as a simple CRM for influencers and content creators, and it never worked, but it already had a really nice text editor (TipTap).
Here’s how it works now: my AI interviews me, my answers become ideas and drafts, and I still review and approve everything before it goes out.
“Rippler” is Ripplr and “tip-top” is TipTap; the rest is my own words, put in order. The same answer also became Tamable’s first post about the change, two more posts of mine on X, and a post for my own blog that’s waiting for my review.
What it takes from you
A few minutes of talking, and one read per post. I aim for Tuesdays and Thursdays at 16:00 UTC for what I’m building and my two journals, Building Tamable and Building Mustloop. Some weeks I hit it, some weeks I don’t, and the next number is always there waiting.
The prompt
Paste this into your AI for the next part, with your series’ name in place of [series].
Interview me for the next part of my [series] journal in Tamable. Start with get_workspace and that series, and read its earlier parts so the next one doesn’t repeat them. Ask me a few short questions, one at a time: what happened since the last part, what I learned, what didn’t work, and how I feel about it. Save my answers as ideas in my own words, and tell me if any of them could be posts of their own, for this project or another. Draft the next part from my words only, with that project’s strategy. Don’t write the series number: Tamable adds it. Add the draft to the series, submit it for review, and tell me the date the series’ rhythm suggests for it.
Don’t have a series yet? Ask your AI to create one in Tamable, or make it yourself, then start with #1: how you got here. For the whole routine around it, read the Playbook.