AI-Enhanced Productivity: Upgrading Your Personal Operating System
Mark Briggs, an executive coach and AI strategist from the Seattle region, recently joined the GeekWire Podcast to share insights on how we can all upgrade our “personal operating systems” using artificial intelligence. In our rapidly evolving digital landscape, Briggs suggests that most of us are operating with outdated approaches to productivity and knowledge management. By strategically incorporating AI tools into our workflows, we can reclaim valuable time and mental space while producing better results.
One of the most transformative changes Briggs recommends is consolidating our scattered digital notes into a single, AI-enhanced system. Many of us distribute our thoughts across Google Docs, Evernote, handwritten notebooks, and countless sticky notes, creating what he calls a “digital junk drawer” that makes valuable insights nearly impossible to retrieve. By bringing these fragmented pieces into one platform that works with AI tools, we unlock powerful capabilities: automatic summarization, connection of related ideas, and extraction of patterns we might never notice ourselves. This consolidation isn’t just about organization—it’s about creating a personal knowledge base that becomes increasingly valuable as it grows. When our notes reach critical mass within an AI-capable system, we gain the ability to query our own thoughts and experiences in ways that weren’t previously possible, essentially creating a personalized second brain that enhances our thinking rather than simply storing information.
Briggs is particularly enthusiastic about giving AI assistants specific personas to shape their responses in useful ways. Rather than interacting with a generic AI, he suggests creating versions that embody specific roles relevant to your work. His most valuable example is what he calls “BossGPT”—an AI assistant programmed to respond like your manager. Instead of waiting days for feedback on a proposal, you can get immediate guidance based on how your actual boss might think. Another powerful application is asking an AI to identify “the most obvious objection” to your ideas before sharing them with others. This approach allows you to address potential criticisms preemptively, strengthening your work before it faces real scrutiny. Briggs explains that by assigning these roles to AI assistants, we’re essentially creating intellectual sparring partners that help us refine our thinking from different perspectives, which is especially valuable for remote workers or independent professionals who lack daily in-person collaboration.
The podcast also explored practical applications of AI for breaking through common workplace challenges. For meeting productivity, Briggs suggests asking three simple questions afterward: What did we decide? Who’s responsible? And who else needs to know? Having AI generate clear follow-ups creates accountability and builds institutional memory. For battling procrastination, he recommends using AI to break large projects into smaller, more manageable steps with specific timeframes, removing the ambiguity that often leads to delay. Perhaps most powerfully, AI can serve as a progress analyzer by summarizing patterns across months of work notes to identify key growth areas and opportunities. Briggs shares that he regularly has AI review six months of client notes in Notion to extract insights about his coaching practice that would otherwise remain hidden in the volume of information. This retrospective analysis provides a level of self-awareness about our work that most people never achieve through manual reflection.
As organizations navigate the integration of AI into their operations, Briggs offers an innovative approach for leaders: challenge team members to rewrite their own job descriptions. Rather than imposing AI tools from above, this exercise encourages employees to identify which aspects of their work could be automated or enhanced through AI, allowing them to focus more on tasks requiring uniquely human skills like creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking. This approach transforms AI adoption from a threat to an opportunity, positioning technology as an amplifier of human capability rather than a replacement. Briggs emphasizes that the goal isn’t to eliminate jobs but to eliminate the tedious parts of jobs that drain energy and creativity. By giving employees agency in this process, organizations can discover practical applications of AI that address real pain points while building a culture that embraces technological enhancement.
During the podcast’s lighthearted “Bot or Not” game, where participants tried to distinguish between human and AI-written bios, an important question emerged: what happens to human executive coaches in a world of increasingly sophisticated AI? Briggs acknowledged that coaching apps already exist, but emphasized a crucial distinction: the accountability that comes from looking another person in the eye cannot be replicated by artificial intelligence. While AI can provide valuable feedback and suggestions, the human connection in coaching creates a different level of commitment and psychological safety. This insight extends beyond coaching to many professional relationships—AI excels at enhancing our capabilities and offering on-demand assistance, but the uniquely human elements of accountability, empathy, and shared experience remain irreplaceable. As Briggs sees it, the future belongs not to those who resist AI nor those who rely on it exclusively, but to professionals who thoughtfully integrate AI assistance into distinctly human work, creating a powerful synergy between technological efficiency and human wisdom.
