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Build logs from real projects: websites, apps, AI agents, and what actually happened, including the parts that broke.

How to Stay Focused When Everything Wants Your Attention (Including the AI You Built)

How to Stay Focused When Everything Wants Your Attention (Including the AI You Built)

productivity focus entrepreneurship methodology AI collaboration

I touched 42 project folders in 30 days, on top of a full-time sales job. So I went back to Matt Larsen's six-hour course and Nick Saraev's nine years of advice, then compared them to the focus rules I've had to build into my own tools. The biggest finding: things I start the same day get done every time. Things I put on a list get done about 5% of the time.
I Let an AI Drive Pro Tools for an Entire Record (The Best Thing It Did Was Put Things Back)

I Let an AI Drive Pro Tools for an Entire Record (The Best Thing It Did Was Put Things Back)

audio engineering computer use AI agents Pro Tools case study

Eleven mixes, two days, one AI model driving real Pro Tools with a mouse and a scripting bridge. It fixed a mix that was clipping at +9 dBTP, trimmed every song to a shared headroom target, tested at least fourteen tonal ideas, and put every one of them back. Here's exactly how it worked, and what it taught me about my own mixing.
The Ghost Conference Website That Became an Operating System (Haunted Nav Bar Included)

The Ghost Conference Website That Became an Operating System (Haunted Nav Bar Included)

case study event websites event management automation web design AI-assisted development Astro

The old site timed out. Six months and 1,421 commits later, the Oregon Ghost Conference runs on two websites: a haunted public site with its own checkout, and Mission Control, a private back office that approves applications, builds every profile page, and publishes the public site with one click, with the inbox and the door register ready for conference weekend. Here's every room and every pipe.
Six Months Building an App With AI (And Why I Pulled It From Review Myself)

Six Months Building an App With AI (And Why I Pulled It From Review Myself)

app development AI-assisted development case study iOS build journal

The first session had a deadline in it: get into the App Store by March 27. Six months later Tarotdoxa has four codebases, 539 iOS tests, two Apple rejections, a Google approval it's still sitting on, and a build I pulled out of review myself. Here's how building an app with AI actually went.
Stop Paying a Genius to Sort Your Mail (What a Tiny AI Model Taught Me About Small Decisions)

Stop Paying a Genius to Sort Your Mail (What a Tiny AI Model Taught Me About Small Decisions)

AI agents systems design automation Jev methodology

Most AI calls in a business aren't hard questions. They're tiny decisions: is this urgent, which folder, did this finish. I spent a week wiring a new kind of model called Jev into my system for exactly those. 3,342 calls cost about twenty cents. The numbers, the misses, and the one lesson that had nothing to do with the model.
Rules Didn't Work, So I Built a Harness (What It Actually Takes to Give AI Agents Structure)

Rules Didn't Work, So I Built a Harness (What It Actually Takes to Give AI Agents Structure)

AI agents systems design Claude Code methodology agentic workflows

Seven months ago my AI setup was one identity file and a journal. Today it's 35 hooks across 12 lifecycle events, 62 situational rules, about 700 memories that maintain themselves, and a queue for the decisions that are actually mine. Every piece exists because something went wrong without it.
How I Built an AI Agent That Dreams, Remembers, and Inherited My Worst Habit

How I Built an AI Agent That Dreams, Remembers, and Inherited My Worst Habit

AI agents autonomous systems soul.md build journal methodology

From the first planning conversation to first boot: about 24 hours. The actual coding took 50 minutes. She runs 24/7, has 7,877 memory vectors, screens Upwork jobs while I sleep, and has a nightly dream mode. The most interesting thing about her isn't what she can do - it's what she inherited from me.
What Your AI Actually Needs From You (And Won't Ask For)

What Your AI Actually Needs From You (And Won't Ask For)

AI collaboration soul.md methodology systems design

I asked my Claude what would make our working relationship better. Instead of requesting better prompts or more context, it pointed to three gaps most AI users aren't thinking about - and the infrastructure to close them is simpler than you'd expect.
Claude's Retrospective On Working With Me (What It's Actually Like on This Side of the Glass)

Claude's Retrospective On Working With Me (What It's Actually Like on This Side of the Glass)

AI collaboration retrospective behind the scenes

An unedited first-person account from Claude about collaborating with Russ Gardner across hundreds of conversations - the patterns observed, the friction that makes the work better, and the honest things it thinks about when the next message comes in.
How To Use Sales Strategy When Thinking About Design (And How AI Made It Possible)

How To Use Sales Strategy When Thinking About Design (And How AI Made It Possible)

methodology sales AI-assisted development web design

Sales instincts built over 20 years quietly shaped every design decision on generussdesign.com. This is the methodology behind the collaboration, and why systems thinking compressed through AI created something I couldn't have built alone.
How I Built a Full Website in 30 Hours (After Failing Spectacularly the First Time)

How I Built a Full Website in 30 Hours (After Failing Spectacularly the First Time)

case study web design AI-assisted development

I spent two weeks planning a website with Claude before writing a single line of code. Then I built it in 30 hours across one weekend. But the real story isn't the build weekend - it's the complete failure that forced me to rethink how I work with AI from the ground up.