Permission to scroll past.

Keeping up with AI has quietly become a third job. And it can feel impossible because of the sheer volume of content and pace of change.

LinkedIn is the worst it’s been in a long time.

Another workflow. Another agent. Another “this changed how I work” post. Another person predicting the future of [insert your job role].

All while trying to do our actual jobs (which now need fewer people, apparently), remember whether the school form was signed for today’s excursion, and book the overdue dentist appointment for the kids... or was it the dog?!

The fifty-five variations of “how to save Claude credits” and endless “look what I built” posts all quietly add to the underlying question:

Where am I supposed to find time to keep up with all of this?

Parents are already doing two jobs, and we’re parenting through a time where expectations have never been higher, the hours have never been longer, and the support has never been thinner.

Parents today spend roughly twice as much time on childcare as parents did in the 1960s, while also doing more paid work.

We’re holding down jobs and trying to be ‘present’ at dinner while our careers quietly shift underneath us in real time.

It’s bloody ridiculous.

Much of the volume exists because companies need to appear distinct and are under pressure to stand out. People are positioning themselves for promotions or future jobs. Hot takes build audiences. Tips drive engagement. And even useful information starts behaving like noise.

I don’t blame any of them for doing what they need to. But none of that is for you.

(BTW, I do realise the irony of me writing this newsletter. But my mission isn’t to build hype or get a promotion - it’s to help parents like me.)

The advances are real, and the pace is genuinely fast. But a lot of what floods the feed is still different layers of the same broader systems shift, showing up in different forms.

Which is actually good news, because it means this is not as impossible to keep up with as it feels.

We do not need to absorb all of it.

We just need a better filter.

The filter that helps me is seeing it all through the lens of a system.

The launches and features. The hot takes and “download my workflow” posts. Once you strip away the positioning, most of them are just different views of the same underlying structure.

Every system, at every level of complexity, has the same basic parts. From a coffee machine to an AI tool to your family’s Tuesday.

Inputs: what comes in.
Rules: what governs how it behaves.
The work: what actually gets done.
Memory: what’s held onto and stored.
Outputs: the result the system is trying to produce.
Feedback: what tells you whether the output was any good, and feeds into the next round.

The output is the whole point of any system. The dinner that happened. The work that shipped. The Thursday that didn’t fall apart.

Once you start looking through this lens, the noise gets quieter surprisingly fast.

Take Lovable.

Lovable looks like magic because it bundles multiple parts of the system into one interface.

You describe what you want with text and imagery (inputs). AI generates the code (the work). Lovable Cloud handles deployment and infrastructure (memory + outputs). You test and refine what comes out (feedback).

Claude with Connectors is another good example.

Originally, Claude mostly operated inside the chat itself - you gave it information, it reasoned over it, and produced outputs. Connectors extended it into live systems like Gmail, Slack, calendars, and documents, which dramatically expanded what it could actually do.

Once you break down the parts, you see what news is actually worth your limited attention and start to make sense of what’s actually happening.

The second part of the filter is simpler:

How much does this matter to me, right now?

Sometimes a small feature update turns out to solve exactly the thing currently draining you. (Claude Code Routines for me are still one of the best upgrades to my family's operating system, and they barely made headlines.)

And vice versa: seemingly big news might mean almost nothing for your actual work or life.

When I started applying this, I can’t tell you how good it felt to scroll past something and think:

Not for me. Not today.

No low-level anxiety. No feeling like I was behind. Just context.

There’s another reason I think practising this framing matters.

Mapping new information onto parts of a system doesn’t just help filter noise. It helps you actually understand how these new systems work.

The tools will keep changing, and new favourites will emerge, like Claude vs Chat GPT. But the ability to recognise the structure underneath complexity is becoming a foundational skill.

The people who stay grounded through this shift won’t be the people who memorise the latest launches. 

They’ll be the people who can see the structure underneath the hype and understand what it means.

Your family life is probably the best systems training ground and most complex operating system you will ever manage.

Inputs everywhere. Rules constantly negotiated. Memory scattered across six locations, half of them living inside your own head. Continuous work. Continuous feedback loops. Tiny failures compounding into chaos by Thursday afternoon.

Testing tools against something real - dinner logistics, school projects, Sunday night planning - teaches you more in thirty minutes than fifty LinkedIn posts ever will.

Used well, AI should return capacity to your life, not consume what little capacity you already have.

And I think that’s what gets lost in AI discourse right now.

Most of us aren’t trying to win at AI.

We’re trying to preserve attention and get through the week with a little more capacity left for the people we love.

That’s a very different goal.

And honestly, a much more important one.

Google Gemini in Workspace got real.
Gemini can now read across your emails, calendar, files, and chats to draft documents on its own.

Through the filter: this touches inputs, the work, and outputs all at once. If your work life lives in Google Workspace, this matters and is worth playing with.

Claude for Small Business launched.
Pre-built workflows for payroll, invoicing, and month-end close running inside QuickBooks, HubSpot, Canva, and DocuSign.

Through the filter: this is a more complete business system - pre-built workflows, memory, connectors, outputs. If you run a side business or freelance, it’s well worth a look.

I’d love to hear how this lands for you - just hit reply.

See you next week,

Sarah xx