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Signal Over Noise

One Shortcut Is Worth More Than Ten Assistants

Published about 1 month ago • 3 min read

The AI Download #022

May 2nd, 2025

Dear Reader,

I used to think building a great AI assistant meant covering everything: Project planning. Writing help. Scheduling. Notes. Outreach. You name it.

So I built one that could technically do it all…and I barely used it.

Turns out, what I actually needed wasn't a chatbot--it was a shortcut. Something focused. Clear. A tool that saved me time on one thing I always put off.

There's a kind of fatigue that sets in when you've tried too many tools. The dashboards, the feature lists, the "AI-powered" everything--it's a lot. And it's easy to lose the thread. But the truth is, most of us don't need AI to do everything.

We just need it to do one thing well.

Like rewriting a newsletter intro.

Or giving you three solid tweet drafts from a blog post.

Or summarising a 30-minute meeting into a checklist.

The best AI tools aren't built to impress. They're built to reduce friction.

And what they can't do?

They can't decide what matters to you.

They can't pick your priorities.

That part still belongs to you.

So here's something simple to try this week:

  1. Pick one task that you’ve been avoiding.
  2. Ask: what would the simplest shortcut for this look like?
  3. Don’t overbuild. Start with that.

No need to launch a full agent, no need to automate the entire workflow. Sometimes, one small shortcut makes a bigger difference than a dozen “smart” tools.

Confused Where To Start?

There are thousands of GPTs available in the ChatGPT Store, and you can start using them for free. Here are a few popular ones that might help:

Write For Me (Link)
​A content creation assistant that helps generate tailored, engaging content with a focus on quality and relevance. Ideal for drafting articles, emails or social media posts.

Scholar GPT (Link)
​Enhances research by providing access to over 200 million resources, including Google Scholar, PubMed, bioRxiv, and arXiv. Useful for students, researchers, and anyone needing academic information.

Consensus (Link)
​Allows users to chat directly with scientific literature, offering simple explanations and article summaries backed by academic papers. Beneficial for quickly understanding complex scientific topics.

Canva GPT (Link)
​Integrates with Canva to help design presentations, logos, social media posts, and more. Suitable for users looking to create visual content effortlessly.

GPT Store Finder (Link)
​A tool to help discover the best custom GPTs for specific projects by collecting data about public GPT models and ranking them. Ideal for users seeking specialised GPTs tailored to particular tasks.

You can explore these and more at the ChatGPT Store.

Using ChatGPT to Untangle My Web Hosting Costs

I used ChatGPT to help me sort through years of messy web hosting choices, old invoices, and forgotten services. It wasn’t about automation — it was about thinking clearly, with a bit of AI help. Here’s how it helped me get untangled.

🛠️ Get My Agents for Creators, Builders and Doers.

My AI Creator’s Toolkit is a growing collection of lightweight, task-focused AI agents designed to help you get small jobs done faster. No fluff, no jargon, and no need to learn prompt engineering (but if you wanted to, there's also a tool for that!).

Here are a few of the tools included:

  • Jeannie – helps you come up with ideas for what kind of GPTs you could build
  • Jamie – a YouTube assistant that helps you plan, script, and optimise your videos
  • Webster – turns your meeting notes into clear actions and takeaways
  • Seymour – quickly generates SEO-friendly meta descriptions from any webpage
  • Prompto – takes a messy idea and turns it into a clean, usable GPT prompt

The AI Creator’s Toolkit is all about cutting out repetitive tasks and giving you a shortcut to useful results. More tools are being added every month, so sign up today!

👉 You can try it for free (includes 10 credits)

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📣 Quick heads-up: A new name, same mission

Starting next week, this newsletter will be called Signal Over Noise.

Why the change? Because that’s what I’m here to do—filter out the noise and share the tools, workflows, and insights that actually move the needle. "The Download" and subsequent "The AI Download" were always just working titles until I found my flow.

Still focused on AI, automation, and time-saving ideas for solo creators—just with a name that better reflects the goal.

Thanks for reading, as always.

Jim

Made with ❤️ in Valencia by Jim Christian. For feedback, please reach out to hello@jimchristian.net.

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Signal Over Noise

Jim Christian

Signal Over Noise (formerly The AI Download) is your weekly guide to navigating the rapidly evolving world of AI and digital technology. Written by Jim Christian, a digital strategy consultant and former tech educator, this newsletter cuts through the noise to deliver practical insights and actionable strategies. Each week, you’ll get behind-the-scenes access to real-world experiments with cutting-edge AI tools, automation strategies, and emerging technologies.

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