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I'll be upfront about something — my interests don't exactly overlap in ways that make life simple. I'm into comics, I'm into tech like electric scooters, and somehow I also ended up researching dozens of AI platforms for this newsletter. On any given day I'm trying to keep up with new comic releases, research scooter specs and modifications, and actually learn enough about AI tools to write about them in a way that isn't completely useless.
That's a lot of rabbit holes for one person. Keeping up with all of it can feel like a part time job on top of everything else.
Then I started actually using AI tools the way they're supposed to be used — not just asking them random questions, but building them into the stuff I was already doing. The difference was immediate. Here's what that actually looks like in practice.
Comics — Finding What to Read Next Without Losing Hours
Anyone who reads comics knows the research problem. You finish the collection of issues, want to know what to read next, and suddenly you're searching Reddit threads to try and find the correct reading order. It adds up fast.
I started using ChatGPT and Perplexity to cut that process down to about five minutes. I describe what I just finished, what I liked about it, what tone I'm in the mood for, and ask for reading order recommendations. What used to take a full evening of tab-hopping now takes one conversation.
Perplexity is especially good for this because it pulls current information — so when a new run drops or a story line concludes, it actually knows about it rather than giving me recommendations based on outdated information.
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Electric Scooters — Research That Actually Goes Somewhere
Scooter research has the same problem comic research does but slightly worse. You want to compare specs, read real owner experiences, understand which modifications are worth it, and figure out where to actually buy parts — and the information is scattered across forums, YouTube comments, and review sites that all contradict each other.
I use AI to help consolidate that mess. Paste in a few Reddit threads, ask for a summary of what owners are actually saying about a specific model, and get a clear picture in two minutes instead of two hours. It's not perfect, and AI can still miss the nuance of a really technical forum discussion — but for general research and comparison it cuts the noise down dramatically.
This is where CustomGPT genuinely changed things for me. I fed it a collection of scooter documentation, spec sheets, and notes I'd saved — and now I have a personal chatbot that actually knows the specific models I care about. Ask it a question about range, battery specs, or compatible parts and it pulls from my own saved information rather than guessing. For anyone who goes deep on a hobby with a lot of technical details, it's kind of a game changer.
The Part That Actually Saves the Most Time
Here's the thing that rarely gets talked about — a large amount of wasted time doesn’t come from the research, but the communication. Writing emails, messages, explanations, follow-ups. Things that should take five minutes somehow eat thirty.
I started using ElevenLabs differently than most people do. Instead of typing out a long explanation and then editing it for twenty minutes, I speak it out loud and let the AI capture it naturally. Speaking forces you to explain things the way you actually think rather than the stiff way most people write. The output is faster, more natural, and needs way less editing.
Talking to generate text instead of typing it will be a weird shift at first, but once it clicks it's one of those things you can't imagine working without.
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What This Actually Adds Up To
I'm not saving two hours by using one magic tool. It's more like ten minutes here, fifteen minutes there, across a dozen small things throughout the day.
The people getting the most out of AI right now aren't the ones using the most tools — they're the ones who found two or three that fit how they already think and built them into the stuff they were already doing. Whatever your thing is, the tools will work the same way.
Start with whatever's eating the most of your time. That's where AI will actually make a difference.