This Week: Bouncing back to new heights • A simple AI workflow that could save you a chunk of time • A walk around Soho gone wrong • My Favourite Finds • The Darkroom
Cloning Myself
Sitting at my desk, surrounded by the warmth of several new books, I realised that I've digested the turbulence of the last few weeks in record time.
My reality hasn't changed all that much. Everything that happened in Germany still happened, and I still have to find somewhere else to live, as the place I've called home for the best part of a decade is being sold. Oh, and I was the victim of a crime… see this week’s story. But, emotionally speaking, I've pretty much bounced back.
I think it's the morbid silver-lining to losing my parents. I've become pretty decent at grieving unwanted surprises and re-anchoring myself. It's been agonising work, getting this far, but it's a comfort to know that I have this sort of resilience inside me.
The other record-breaking moment since the last issue is that I assembled this newsletter in about seven seconds.
The curation, drafting, and redrafting still took hours – and I love that part – but the manual pasting, formatting, linking, and checking everything before publishing the newsletter crushes my soul. So, to spare my soul and time, I got a robot to do it.
While I enjoyed the richness of books by Lopate, Didion, and Carver, I had my new AI Agent take care of the tedious work of compiling this issue’s writing into something ready to review and publish.
I think it's the closest I've come to cloning myself.
I've been helping friends and family figure out how to clone themselves too, as most guides are inaccessible to non-technical people.
If you'd like a practical, uncomplicated guide to using AI Agents, click this link to join that mailing list, and I'll keep you posted.
The plan is to run some free workshops and continue preparing for AI Agents Untangled, the course I started working on in 2022.
For inspiration, I've shared more details on the agentic workflow I put together in this week's guide. You can read it below.
Feel free to reply to this message or share your questions, requests, and favourite finds here.
Jamie | @JamoeMills
☀️ From a train to Oxford
Find a better way to solve problems that matter.
P.S. The monthly schedule for Jamie’s Journal continues as I push to get various big projects done before 2027. Expect the next edition on the 11th October 2026.
And again, if you'd like to get more uncomplicated guidances on using AI Agents, remember to click here to be kept in the loop.
Useful Guides
Escaping Your Phone’s Gravity: Part 3
Here's a workflow that gets us closer to the Solarpunk reality of writing more poetry while the robots do the dishes – or assemble all the newsletter pieces you wrote while you catch your breath.
At a glance
Based on the question: Can one person build a useful AI automation without coding, hiring a developer, or handing over the controls?
- Using an AI agent, Notion, WordPress and MailerLite, I built a system that assembles a finished newsletter into ready-to-review drafts, saving me hours of manual work.
- The result is a modest but useful second brain: it handles the clerical assembly, follows my existing templates, and still waits for me to make the final call.
Introduction
Throughout all the projects I’ve worked on, I always find myself pining for a software engineer to build various custom automations to make my life easier. There are no-code tools, like Zapier, but I usually need something more tailored.
In recent months, AI has passed another tipping point becoming ‘competent’. I’ve been tinkering with it since 2022 and the difference is palatable. It’s finally got its head screwed on, getting less confused and being less insubordinate.
Seeing this, I decided to use it to clone myself, getting it to take on the most cumbersome part of my newsletter: assembling all the writing into a WordPress post and MailerLite email campaign.
What would have taken a software engineer, thousands of pounds, and about a week of back and forth, ended up taking me about 30 minutes to prototype, test, refine, and deploy.
I managed all this while speaking plain English. That alone means these powers will become adopted by non-techies, the majority of humanity, who can’t tell an API from an DIY, and go hush when GitHub is mentioned.
So let’s wade gently into the waters of AI. To inspire your own automations — or agentic workflows — I’ll share how I wired up Notion, WordPress and MailerLite to spare me the hassle of manual assembly and give me more time to spend writing.
True Stories & Essays
Down The Drain
When a walk through Soho, London, turns sour and wonder where you went wrong.
I went back to Soho and, unlike four days earlier, no one spat on me.
‘In what context?’
That was one friend’s opening question when, in the immediate aftermath, I needed to vent and decided to drop him a message.
‘Why does that matter?’, I asked.
‘Well, was it, like, an accident, something sexy, or an emergency?’ he said.
‘An emergency?’
‘You could have been on fire’.
‘No. I wasn’t self-immolating and there was no sexy pretext. I was just walking down Old Compton Street and this raggedy, old woman leaned towards me and launched a gob-full of brown sludge.’
‘Oh WTF!? Did it get on you!?’
‘Yes!!!! I didn’t get what she’d done until I looked down and saw a turd-looking lozenge splattered on my arm and started to gag’.
‘It got on your skin!? When did this happen?’
‘Like an hour ago. I managed to find a bar that let me use their bathroom. The guy looked fed up when I asked but then I showed him my arm, he freaked out and told me to “go downstairs on the right”. He was nice. Gave me a free drink after I finished dunking my arm in acid.’
‘That’s something. I guess people aren’t all bad. That’s so nasty though. I’m so sorry that happened to you.’
‘Yeah, thanks. It took everything I had not to throw up.’
Sitting in the bar writing to my friend, apparently I looked sad, though I wasn’t wallowing in too much self-pity. More shock and a mojito. Nonetheless, a middle-aged Liverpudlian couple decided to come over, tell me how miserable I looked and how, in a unanimous landslide decision, they would come over and cheer me up...
My Favourite Finds
Things worth passing along.
Do you have a favourite find (ideas, books, quotes, purchases, etc.)? Share it here.
EasyWake (the perfect alarm app + reader discount)
Not sponsored – Every morning followed the same pattern: my alarm blares, I disable it, and I wake up hours later annoyed that I lost another morning. But since adopting EasyWake, I get out of bed and stay out of bed.
‘Challenge Wake’ was the life-changing feature. You can set it so your alarm only turns off once you complete a challenge: a maths problem, barcode scan, or walk away.
It’s deeply integrated with iOS, so all the iPhone sleep features are accessible, it works with an Apple Watch, and it’s a one-time purchase.
I’ve experimented with everything to become a morning person, and this is the only thing that’s worked. Enjoy 50% off a lifetime purchase with this special link. It’s the best ~£10 you’ll spend to improve your mornings.
My setup: wear Apple Watch to bed → Alarm triggers → Go to iPhone in living room → Complete 5m ‘Walk Away’ challenge → Alarm stops. It’s everything I wanted: no distracting devices in the bedroom, the watch alarm is discreet, and I have to physically get out of bed to turn it off.
The developer is super friendly and helpful, so if there’s anything extra you want from the app, definitely drop him a message.
American mountains (Estonian language quirk)
'Ameerika mäed' (‘Roller coaster') in Estonian, literally translates to ‘American mountains.’ I thought it was charming.
Fulton (durable umbrellas)
Not sponsored – Autumn is here and you need an umbrella that doesn’t fall apart in the wind and rain. Fulton is my go-to brand. They’re affordable, sleek, compact, and tough. I went with the Fulton Open & Close-11; it’s survived every British storm I’ve thrown at it. Plus it opens with a button, which is just cool.
Two Monks and a Lady (parable)
Since writing The Creative Cost Of Remembering Too Much, this old Buddhist parable has been rattling around in my head.
Two monks, one senior and one junior, are travelling together when they reach a river in full flood. A woman stands on the bank, unable to cross. The junior monk walks straight past; touching a woman is against their rule. The senior monk picks her up, carries her across, sets her down, and the two monks continue on their way.
Miles later, the junior monk is still stewing. 'How could you carry her like that? You know we're not supposed to touch women.'
The senior monk looks at him. 'I put her down at the river. Why are you still carrying her?'
The Darkroom
Things I've seen.
