How is AI working for you?

If you are a recent client of mine, you’ll know I’ve been using Heidi AI scribe to help with my note-taking and summary reports. As a sole practitioner, being able to save time on the less complicated but time-consuming parts of my job was my main driver for exploring this.

The ethics behind the platform were a huge pro for me too. It’s made in Australia by a GP and an Aussie tech to be fully compliant with Australian medical privacy and confidentiality legislation. Nothing is recorded; it’s transcribed only, and this data is housed in servers located in Australia.

I had concerns, though: would this dumb down my ability as a career practitioner to synthesise the discussion into words? Would it mean I was reflecting less on the session and adding less to it after it finished?

What’s happened instead has exceeded any expectations I had.

I’m feeling more competent and engaged in my work. I’m reflecting on the spot and able to pose deeper questions. I’m not distracted by needing to write down that thing I promised I’d send, or that key point my client just made. I don’t feel constantly behind in my admin so my anxiety has decreased, and that’s giving me a lot more headspace to do the more complex work that I love.

It’s free for unlimited note-taking, and you can use this referral link if you want to try it yourself.

Other ways I’m using AI:

Heidi is by far my biggest AI use, but I do dabble in other platforms and uses. Here are a few:

• As an Editor: Getting help rewording my often-rambling sentences is a godsend.
• To get started: The curse of the blank page feeds directly into my tendency for procrastination, but asking AI for a report format or structure for whatever I’m having trouble conceptualising helps me get over this hurdle quickly.
• To simplify complex work: This is related to the previous point about getting started. Sometimes I just can’t distil quickly what I need to say. My brain travels in waves across ideas and I’m often going bigger picture rather than smaller, but AI helps me to pull out the relevant concepts out quickly.

Platform Considerations

If you want to use AI, there are myriad options these days, and you should understand the platform and how it works to make informed choices. For instance, ChatGPT has better output than CoPilot (in my experience so far), but it’s ethics grate on me because it’s trained it’s model by scraping intellectual property from the web. CoPilot doesn’t train itself with your content, so it feels a more ethical option, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as ChatGPT yet. So, I use ChatGPT selectively.

Make good choices, kids

In all, some incredible benefits come with using AI, but it should be clear what you gain and what you risk. At this point, I don’t have an interest in creating a custom bot, because the small amount of writing I do, I enjoy, and I want to stay in control of it. For me, the gain has been my sanity even more so than my time, and the option to now work on the stuff I enjoy more. I’m comfortable with the choices I’m making to limit any risks. Getting back that freedom from the never-ending admin cycle can’t be understated.

So, my best advice is proceed with caution, information, and curiosity.

How are you using AI? I’d love to hear about it, email me . It’s always me who replies.