Hey Reader,

This email will share:

🚀 My 2024 Goals: My plans for this year (inc. secret coming soon 🤫)

💪 100 Days of Doing: The truth behind my 100-day video challenge

🧠 Internet Finds: From unlocking AI's potential to a fun fact about the iconic Michael Jackson Smooth Criminal dance move.

🛠️ Free Resource/Tool: Plus, a special gift to help you shatter your big goals.

My 2024 goals This week I'm sharing some of the tools I use to boost engagement on my posts. → Read it now

​

100 Days of Doing (how it went)

I launched a 100 Day challenge in Sept 2023 to publish a video every day for 100 days. 40 other people signed up with me (to do their own chosen thing for 100 days). Myself and 4 other people completed all the days.

I shared my social stats in my 2023 review. But below are the stats of just those 100 days — spoiler: the majority of the gains and increases for the whole year happened in this period.

My goal for this was to get comfortable with posting video and trying new things, so I'm glad I did it. But I'm also glad it's over, here's why...

Publishing a video a day required varied skill set. Every day I had to come up with an idea, then film, edit, write caption, publish etc. While I created systems to streamline some things, it was still a bunch of work.​
​
The time investment varied. Some videos were a quick turnaround, taking as little as 20 minutes from idea to publishing. Others were more time-intensive, stretching over a couple of hours. And the time invested often didn't correlate with the success of the video 😆
​
This experience brings to light an important consideration: aligning effort with goals. If my goal was to carve out a niche as a short-form content creator then dedicating to this project aligns well with that goal.
​
​The key takeaway here is the importance of intentionality in choosing where to invest our efforts. And connecting my daily activities → long term goals.

Internet Finds

How to get better responses from AI

A recent study was done to figure out how to prompt AI to get the best answers. The paper is 24 pages and you can find it here if you enjoy reading this stuff.

🧠 The TLDR Summary:

• Pleasantries aren’t necessary. They're just extra words that don’t add value.
  ​
• Be Assertive AF. Begin your requests with 'Your task is to...' or assertively say 'You MUST provide...'. This type of language makes a clear impact.
  ​
• Want relatable & less robotic responses? Include something like 'Answer like a normal human would.' to keep the responses relatable and less robotic.
  ​
• If you’re looking for a detailed explanation, be explicit in your request. 'Walk me through this step-by-step and explain your reasoning as you go'.
  ​
• Deeper understanding: For those times when you're craving clarity or a deeper dive into any topic, idea, or piece of information say this: "Write the [essay/text/paragraph] using simple English like you’re explaining something to a 5-year-old."
  ​
• Fun hack: Dangle a carrot 🥕. Say something like 'I'll give you $20 for world class output.' It’s like a performance incentive for the digital brain. The best part is you don't even need to pay up after 😆

​
The paper is 24 pages and you can find it here. Recommend checking out pages 5-6 for specific prompt principles like this:

​

The Jackson Lean method

Do you remember seeing this dance move for the first time 👉🏻

I do. I must have seen this dance hundreds of times — and I never knew the trick behind it.​
​
Turns out he had a hidden heel that allowed for it, check this out 👇🏻

​

​

🛠️ Free resource / tool:

I've been using this sheet for the last few years to break down big goals. You can grab a copy to use for yourself here.

That's it for today Reader, hope your year is off to a good start!

Best, Cathryn

P.S. Here's a link to my 2024 goals. Send me a link to yours, or respond to this email.

​

​

​

2028 E Ben White Blvd #240-5675, Austin, Texas 78741
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​