#582 How to use AI as your thought partner

**Helen** (0:00)
Hi, everybody, it is Helen from the Squiggly Careers Podcast. And before today's episode starts, I wanted to let you know about something that Sarah and I have created for the summer. We are going to be launching a series all about a career well spent. We're going to release four episodes, one every Tuesday, and it's going to be us in conversation with an expert who can give us a different perspective on what it means to have a career well spent. We'll talk about longevity, we'll talk about relationships, we'll talk about time, and we'll talk about making a difference. We wanted this to be a community learning moment too, so on Thursdays, we're going to have a LinkedIn live where you can bring your questions, you can bring your reflections, and we'll discuss the episodes together as a community. All the links you need are going to be in the Squiggly Careers newsletter. So if this sounds like something you want to get involved in, and we really, really hope you do, it's all free, and it'll be a great learning moment, then all you need to do is sign up for the newsletter, just go to squigglynewsletter.com, that's squigglynewsletter.com, and we will send you everything you need to know to get involved. But for now, let's get on with today's episode.
Hi, I'm Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast, and you are listening to one of our weekly Squiggly Career Shortcuts. These episodes are designed to be simple, short and very effective, so you can put the things into action straight away. And today, I want to talk to you a bit about how to use AI as a thought partner at work and for your career. I think we're increasingly experimenting with AI and using it in lots of different ways. But one of the things that I have found really helpful is to think about it as a thought partner and to use it in different ways. And I want to talk through some of the things that have helped me in case it helps you too. So the first thing is, how can you use AI as a thought partner for your career? And for this, it doesn't really matter what platform you're using. Your company might tell you to use Copilot or maybe you're using Gemini or maybe outside of work you're using Claude or ChatGBT. It doesn't really matter, just use the one that is right for you. But if you're going to use it to help you as a thought partner with your career, my recommendation would be to say to it, act as my Squiggly Career Coach. Now even as a start point, what that will do is it will start to draw on all the things Sarah and I have shared, so practical insights and lots of simple advice, and it will give you that kind of style back. So act as my Squiggly Career Coach, then give it a little bit of context. What is it you need some career support with? Maybe it's caging your confidence gremlins, maybe it's exploring your career possibilities. So you need to give it that little bit of insight into what you want it to help you with. And then the second bit is, get it to ask you one question at time to raise your awareness and then to conclude the conversation with some actions that you can take. Because what we're always trying to do is get awareness and action. And if it's going to be your Squiggly Career Coach, that's how you want to use it. So first of all, act as my Squiggly Career Coach, then give it a bit of context and then make sure it asks you one question at once to raise your awareness and then gives you some actions you can take away. So that's one way you can use it. Second way you can use it as a thought partner is with your average week at work. So lots of us are struggling with long to-do lists and lots of meetings and just so much stuff that we need to get done. It can be so overwhelming that sometimes you don't know where to start. AI can be a really useful thought partner with this.
So what I tend to do is I do a bit of a dump at the start of a day, and I just talk out loud to my AI.
Most of them have got some kind of voice feature, and I find this a lot easier to do than just typing what's on my mind. So just talk to the AI.
I also use a tool called Whisper Flow, which my team are bored with me saying, and I will just press the button and I'll talk, and I'll say, this is everything on my mind, this is everything on my list. I've also experimented with different ways of connecting my AI to my diary and my inbox. But to be honest, the most helpful thing I found is just to talk out loud. These are things that I need to do by the end of the week. These are things that people want from me.