How I Used My Custom AI Tool for Quarterly Planning

Author

Stefan Wirth
March 15, 2025

Hi there 👋,

This week, I want to take you behind the scenes of how I used my custom AI tool for quarterly planning - a meta look at using AI to improve strategic thinking.

What's New

I just completed my quarterly planning session using "Claude on Steroids," a custom AI tool I built to enhance my thinking process. Instead of staring at a blank page or following rigid templates, I had a collaborative planning session with an AI system designed specifically for my workflow.

The results were fascinating - not just a better plan, but insights into how AI can function as a thinking partner rather than just a content generator.

The Planning Process

My approach centered around a "Life Portfolio Assessment" with four key quadrants:

  1. Values: What principles guide my decisions?

  2. Assets: What resources and capabilities do I have?

  3. Space Elasticity/Margin: Where do I have flexibility?

  4. Goals/Desires: What am I working toward?

Using my custom AI tool, I was able to:

  • Compare my current assessment with my previous quarter

  • Identify patterns and blind spots in my thinking

  • Develop a staggered portfolio approach for multiple projects

  • Create scaled buffer systems based on project size

The most valuable insight? The realization that I needed to batch my work in 3-week execution/1-week strategy cycles to balance deep work with strategic thinking.

Insight

The real power of AI for strategic thinking isn't in generating plans for you. It's in creating a structured dialogue that challenges your assumptions.

Most people use AI to write content they already know. The real breakthrough comes when you use it to discover what you don't know you know.

Your own insights, reflected back and reorganized, become the foundation for better decisions. This is the meta-level of AI use that few are exploring.

Becoming a Learning Machine

Rating: 4/5 (Using AI to enhance reading comprehension)

Takeaway: Pretty interesting how Da Vinci managed to combine engineering and art, mostly self-taught he was before his time.

My Latest Video

Last week I asked what video I should make, and I only got 2 responses 😅

But both were about building AI products, so here you go. ⬇️

Let me know what you want to see next ;)

Talk Soon,
Stefan