While out on leave, I spent a good chunk of what little free (and awake) time I had playing with AI. It’s advancing so rapidly, I felt that I’d be falling too far behind if I didn’t keep up.
Some highlights:
I got good at using Claude CoWork to automate personal tasks, including steps that involve using my web browser and creating/updating files on my local computer. Sounds basic, but this is INCREDIBLY powerful.
Learned how to use Claude Code to build my own applications - including ones I’ll discuss below
Learned how to create skills and markdown files in Claude to make my AI applications more skilled and context aware. This makes all my chats infinitely more productive and also makes the output created by CoWork and Code high quality.
I built a web application that we can use for onboarding all new clients. Our old Word document that looked and felt like it was created in 2010 is gone - and replaced with a polished, premium-feeling web experience.
Created an animated video that shows off the exceptional feedback our team receives via Google reviews.
I found the process - and my progress learning new skills - addicting because of how easy it was to get into a flow state and how quickly I could turn an idea into a fully executed tool.
Every skill I picked up and idea I acted on opened up three new ideas that I hadn’t thought of before. My list of ideas for things that were genuinely impossible size months ago is growing faster than I can execute on them.
Perhaps the ability for rapid iteration that AI enables is both a feature and a bug…
I am frequently asked how I use AI personally and professionally. And I spend tons of time mining for inspiration about how others are using AI to improve performance, reduce costs, and create things that were never before possible.'
I think that the best tools to build are the ones that solve my own problems. In this case, the problem and the solution are one and the same. Why not use AI to build a tool to share that same inspiration with others that I’m looking for myself?
So I spent a few hours building AIInCollections.com. It’s still not perfect, and I’ve got big ideas for a v2 of this, but it’s good enough to share!
It’s a free, community-powered idea bank packed with real AI use cases for the collections/AR industry. I filled it with dozens of ideas you can draw inspiration from and implement today, each with tools used, cost estimates and difficulty ratings. And more will be added each day from users.
When you access it, you’ll find that there is a WIDE range of ideas in terms of scope, cost and complexity. My goal here was to make this valuable regardless of where you are on your AI journey.
Just getting started using AI tools? I've got you covered.
Pretty comfortable, but still locked out of pushing some operational use cases by a legacy CRM? You should still find plenty of ideas you can execute today.
Hyper fluent and doing it all? I’d bet there is still something new you can find.
Here’s the catch: To unlock the full bank, you must share one idea of your own. That’s it. One idea in, unlimited inspiration out.
It’s ok to even share an “there’s got to be a way to do this…” idea that you haven’t fully fleshed out yet because that seed of an idea might be enough to inspire someone else to develop the solution.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
Last Week Lowdown
Last week’s post introduced the Theory of Constraints (my new favorite problem-solving framework) and how to use it to prevent wasting time and resources solving the wrong problems. Click here to view the entire post.
Are we on the same wavelength? Check out EngageARM.com for free resources in-depth tutorials to help you build a highly-effective recovery department.
I’d like to close this with a quick ask. If you enjoyed this, please share with a colleague. If you disliked it, let me know why. All feedback is good feedback, after all.
Cheers,
Nate
