Unlocking Your Morning Walk Insights with AI

Every morning I take a walk, and while it might seem like I'm just chatting away on my airpods, I'm actually processing thoughts about work, projects, and various ideas. What's interesting is that walking isn't just good for health; it's a cognitive enhancer. Research by Oppezzo and Schwartz (2014) revealed that walking can significantly boost creative ideation, both during the walk and shortly afterward (Oppezzo, M., & Schwartz, D. L. (2014). Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(4), 1142-1152).

Now, here's how I harness the power of AI to make the most out of these morning insights:

1. Recording Thoughts: I use the voice memos on my iWatch or iPhone. It's simple, convenient, and gets the job done. Any reliable recording tool would work.
2. Transcription: Once I'm back from my walk, I turn to platforms like Descript or Swell.ai to transform my voice notes into written transcripts. This allows me to visually assess and organize my thoughts.
3. AI-Powered Analysis: I upload the transcript to ChatGPT 4.0, although there are many AI tools out there. (Remember: always prioritize privacy when sharing content).
4. I ask the AI for a quick summary to get the gist of my musings.
5. Next, I request a structured outline, categorizing the thoughts for easy access and reference.
6. If I find a topic particularly intriguing, I'll instruct the AI to draft a concise blog post using my words, keeping it tight and on-point.‍
7. Visual Representation with Dalle-3: Sometimes, an image speaks louder than words. I feed the AI-crafted content into Dalle-3 to generate a visual representation. It's a unique way to visualize my thoughts, offering a different perspective.

Deepening Insights Over Time:

After making this a routine for several days, the breadth and depth of the insights start to compound. Here's how I further harness the power of AI:

Cross-Referencing Past and Present: I prompt the AI to compare my current insights with past transcripts. This is a bit annoying to do currently because you need to copy and paste some prior posts into the AI, but it will soon get better as context windows increase. Currently Claude2 by Anthorpic is the best for this. Questions like "What also relates to what I discussed today?" and "What am I missing?" become invaluable. This cross-referencing illuminates patterns, recurrent themes, and potential gaps in my thinking.

Identifying Business Opportunities: With a rich repository of thoughts, I challenge the AI to highlight potential business ideas or opportunities emanating from my musings. It's fascinating how a casual morning thought can metamorphose into a viable business proposition when viewed through the right lens.

Linking to Academic Theories: During my walks, I often think about various academic concepts. I use AI to match these thoughts with established theories. If I'm thinking about peak experiences, the AI might mention Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow". When considering tech adoption, it could reference the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989).

AI has been trained in analogistic thinking, reflecting how humans often think in patterns and relationships. By pushing the AI to think this way, it can identify connections that might be overlooked. Challenge the AI in this domain, and you'll be impressed by the insights it brings forward.‍‍