TL;DR: I wrote about a lot of setups over the past year, but writing about them didn't mean they were settled. Some of them stuck, some of them went away, and some of them changed course. Here's where they stand now and why.
Three weeks after I unpacked
We are what you call serial movers. We've moved many, many times in a short period. One thing I've noticed with each move is that however you set up a space when you unpack, it never stays that way for very long.
The kitchen is a prime example.
We moved into this home not quite a year ago, and I have a ton of kitchen storage. There's room for everything.
When I unpacked, I put everything where I thought it made sense. About three weeks later, I started making little adjustments.
The plates I don't use often could go in the cabinet across the kitchen. They'd still be accessible, but they weren't going in and out of the dishwasher every day.
The spices near the stove were getting too much steam and moisture, so I needed to move them somewhere else.
Because it all comes down to use. How am I using the cabinets? Does what's in them make sense there? How convenient is it to get to what I need?
You don't know all of that when you unpack. You find out when you start cooking every day or reaching for a plate.
The same thing happens with our processes and automations. We find out what works, what needs adjusting, and what we can take out by using them and continuing to refine them.
• ● • ● • ●•
Hi, I’m Lee. Welcome to DigiNav Compass Signal. Around here, I share what happens when AI and technology meet a real business—the useful parts, the messy parts, and what you can take into your own work.
Today, I’ll be showing you what’s still working, what changed, and what I no longer use from the setups I’ve written about over the past year, along with my reasons.
• ● • ● • ●•
After I wrote about them
I wrote about all these projects, but that didn't mean they were one and done. They weren't settled. They continued to be tested and refined.
A post shows where a setup stood when I wrote it. Then I keep using it. New features remove a barrier, what I need changes, or a step stops being necessary. None of that makes the earlier choice a mistake. Refinement is part of the process.
So this is just an update, and I thought it would be fun for you to see what has changed. A few of these could fit in more than one category, so I put each one where it made the most sense.
What stayed
Email sorting
This one has moved around. In March, I built a triage script with Gemini and Google Apps Script. By May, Cowork was running the triage. In September, I moved the sorting from Claude to ChatGPT because both of my inboxes could connect there, and I no longer had to forward one account into the other.
Claude now has that same capability. So why not move it back?
Because of the way I'm dividing work between Claude and ChatGPT. The decision is to keep it there. It's working. With Navi and my Day by Day board, it seems to be a pretty solid process.
My Day by Day board
In October, I said my daily brief was a good fit to try in a Space. That one stuck.
Each day, Navi, my bot, and I go over what needs my attention, what's outstanding, and where the projects stand. The board brings together everything that needs me or is sitting waiting for something.
The subscription Sheet
My subscription records are still in a Google Sheet. How they get there changed a lot, and I'll get to that next.
The Sheet stayed because I still want a shared single source of truth. If I ever decide to move off of ChatGPT, it's in a sheet. It's not stuck in that ecosystem.
• ● • ● • ●•
What changed
Subscription tracking
This was the biggest change, because there was always some type of friction there. I tracked subscriptions in Notion. I added automation. Then I moved it to a Sheet and tried to keep the Sheet updated.
It finally got to a point where ChatGPT could read the emails and documents and make changes on the Sheet. So I canceled Make's paid plan and moved to an automated process in ChatGPT.
Now it runs like this:
ChatGPT finds payments, anomalies, and cancellations.
It presents the details to me.
I approve, update, or add a note.
The automation updates the Sheet, so I don't have to touch it.
Images
In May, I wrote that I hadn't switched image tools. Midjourney matched my illustration style, and other tools handled other jobs. At the end of October, I wrote about bringing my image work into one plugin in ChatGPT.
That plugin is the newest update, and I'm still refining it. I can add and tweak style templates and add a supporting cast of characters. So not only is it getting easier to create more consistent images, it's allowing me to continue to build on that.
Midjourney still has a job, for now. I have a yearly subscription, and I still put prompts in and try things out to make sure everything is holding. Then I give those references to ChatGPT so it can stay current as well. I doubt I'll renew when it comes up, but it hasn't come up yet.
How my files get reached
In March, Notion was my persistent memory and Claude was my thinking partner. Today my shared home is DecisionVerse, my workspace in Obsidian, and that part has stayed put. We've cleaned it up, and it continues to be where the files live.
What changed is how it gets reached. Instead of just relying on iCloud to house the files and keep them updated on all my devices, I'm also syncing DecisionVerse to GitHub. The autonomous agents and the cloud options in AI can now read the files whether or not my device is on or connected.
So it just removed another barrier.
My Mac is still always on and always awake, by the way. GitHub didn't change that yet. I'll come back to why I set it up.
Who does what
In August, my split was think in ChatGPT, build in Codex. These roles continue to be refined with every new advancement. Right now, it looks like this:
Navi directs my attention: what I need, why, and the next action.
Claude and Duet prepare the work: gather sources, make drafts, and save results for review.
Codex and Claude Code check and fix systems, verify automation results, and help me resolve technical problems. Those get divvied up between the two.
Navi is my ChatGPT Dot, and Duet is my Claude assistant. Each one is an autonomous agent that works for you and surfaces things it notices.
Each piece has its own role, kind of like different team members would have their own task lists.
• ● • ● • ●•
What I no longer use
Weekly planning and Weekly Closeout
In December, I moved my weekly planning from Claude to Notion. I don't have a separate weekly planning habit anymore. The daily review on the board covers it.
Weekly Closeout was retired too, and not because it didn't serve a purpose. Now that I have the autonomous agents, the memories are better, and ChatGPT can read computer history and other documentation, it just became a redundant busy work piece of the weekly stuff.
Browser extensions
In January, I was working out what Claude in Chrome could do. I've pretty much retired the extensions. Each of the AIs can access the browser now, so I go right to the desktop app or the browser app, mostly the desktop app.
The Decision Playground
In May, I wrote about this small Notion database of the questions I kept asking myself when I got stuck. The Decision Playground has been retired, but the core of it is still in play. Everything is still rooted in decisions. Now I have my Advisor and Council and different ways I interact with not just the AI but the autonomous agents.
The Content Explorer GPT
In June, I wrote about the GPT I built to turn a vague topic into a small, reviewable set. I just don't use it anymore. I have different things set up that help me figure out what I'm going to write about or what's missing in the writing. Each morning, I document sparks, stories, and nuggets, and projects and other documentation help me develop ideas to write about.
• ● • ● • ●•
Where it stands today
None of this is finished. The plugin is still being refined. The Midjourney renewal is still ahead of me.
And the next test is coming soon. I'll be traveling, and I want to make sure my processes still work when I'm on the road for two days with my computer packed away, working from a tablet and a phone. That's why I started syncing to GitHub. I don't know yet what will hold up.
Same as the kitchen, I'll find out by using it. What you started with can look completely different by the time you end.
If you want to test or refine one of your own processes or automations, here's a prompt you can use:
Here's a process or automation I use: [what it does, which tools it touches, and how often I use it]. Help me review it based on how I actually use it. Ask me one question at a time about what's still working, where I'm working around it, which steps may be redundant now, and whether a new feature or a change in what I need has removed a barrier. Then sort each part into keep, adjust, test, or take out, and give me the smallest test to try next. Don't recommend a new tool unless it solves a specific problem I've described.If you try it, tell me what you found.
What a great idea to look back at how an AI setup changes over a year. I’m thinking of doing the same now. I know a lot has changed, but I’m curious to see just how much.