Wonder Tools

The following is a guest post by Jay Dixit, founder of Socratic AI
Most people treat AI like a question-answering machine: Ask a question, get an answer. What is chili crisp, and why is Gen Z so obsessed with it? What’s the best starting guess for Wordle? What’s the best time of day to post on LinkedIn? (My own real queries from today.)
There’s nothing wrong with using AI to get answers to your questions. But there’s another mode of interacting with AI that many people never consider — one I find much more useful for my creative process.
Here’s what I do instead: I flip the script and let the AI ask the questions for a change. Instead of prompting AI, I get the AI to prompt me.
You may have heard Jeremy call this technique the “reverse interview,” and he’s previously written about it as a tool for reflection. You might use reverse interviewing, say, to conduct a soul-searching interview about what you want from your career.
I take that same role reversal and apply it to the writing process. I call it the “Socratic interview.” It’s the foundational technique I teach for using AI as a thinking partner instead of a content generator. It’s also what inspired the name of my company, Socratic AI, and my upcoming masterclass with Narratively Academy. (See below for details, including an exclusive discount for Wonder Tools readers.)
The Socratic interview works for any writing task — a first-person narrative, a Substack post, a pitch deck, a talk for SXSW, even a speech for my best friend’s wedding. I use two versions of the technique: one to help me figure out what to say, and one to figure out how to say it.
Socratic Interviewing Level 1: Excavating raw material
How to use AI to help you surface memories, examples, and stories
I sometimes meet people who use an even more basic version: the adversarial interview. “Play devil’s advocate. Pressure-test my assumptions. Poke holes in my argument and reveal gaps in my logic.” Maybe call that the starting level.
What I find much more helpful is using the Socratic interview as a tool to access my own creativity.
As a writer, I’ve always had plenty of ideas, insights, and stories. I know they’re in there somewhere. But staring down the blank page is hard. What’s much easier is answering when someone asks me a direct question.
So I use Socratic interviewing to draw out the ideas, memories, stories, and examples I have in my head but haven’t gotten down in writing. For me, it solves the blank page problem — without ever using AI to generate prose.
Let’s say I need to write a groomsman speech for my best friend’s wedding. If I were to use ChatGPT as a ghostwriter the way most people do, it would output something lazy and trite. Look what happens when I ask it to generate a draft.
“That’s not luck, that’s character”? Pure slop.
Socratic interviewing is a different process altogether. Here, I give Claude a bunch of messy context about the writing task and ask it to help me remember the adventures and funny moments I’ve had with Tim over the years.
Generating answers is AI’s default mode, but it also excels at asking evocative questions to jog your memory and get your creative juices flowing. You just need to flip it into that Socratic mode.
I can ask for questions in a batch or, if I want it to feel less like a writing assignment and more like a conversation, take them one at a time. Either way, instead of sweating over a blank page, I’m now in a playful conversation about funny memories from my formative years.
Once I’ve answered these questions, the task ahead of me changes. I’m no longer struggling to compose some perfect sentence to somehow encompass the totality of our friendship. All I have to do is look at my own stories and start choosing and shaping my favorite moments.
---------
Sponsored Message
I open Shortform for books I haven’t had time to read, books I finished years ago, and books I’m not sure are worth my time.
Take What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast by Laura Vanderkam (screenshot above). The Shortform guide surfaces the essential ideas fast. It’s particularly useful for nonfiction books, biographies, self-help, and other genres where you’re reading for tangible takeaways.
I appreciate that smart humans write Shortform’s guides. In an era when AI-generated summaries are everywhere, there’s a difference. These feel like notes from thoughtful readers.
Shortform now covers podcasts and long articles too, not just books. If your reading list grows faster than you can get through it, Shortform is one of the more practical tools I’ve found for making progress on it.
Wonder Tools readers get a free trial + 25% off the annual plan 👇
----------
Socratic Interviewing Level 2: Defining your purpose and strategy
How to use AI to clarify your writing goals
Just as important as figuring out what you want to say is figuring out how you want to say it.
Like all art, writing is about making a thousand tiny decisions. It’s hard to get those decisions right if you don’t even know you’re making them. If the only directive I have in mind as I’m typing is “I need to make this good,” that doesn’t help me figure out how much explanation is sufficient, which words match the register I’m aiming for, and which details will evoke the experience I’m trying to evoke in the reader.
The solution is to define my strategy before I start writing. The best way I know to write something good is to clarify what I’m trying to accomplish, keeping a sort of design brief in mind (or in a separate doc) as I write. If I’ve clearly defined what experience I’m trying to evoke and what elements of craft I want to deploy to get there, I can make those decisions more intentionally.
“Here’s what I’m going for here. I want these opening pages to be super suspenseful. I want the reader to immediately root for the protagonist, and the scene to be fast-paced and easy to visualize, nothing vague or abstract.”
The thing is, I don’t figure this stuff out by staring harder at the draft itself. So before I start writing, I have AI interview me about that too. The questions it asks force me to clarify my purpose and strategy for the piece before I even start drafting.
I might use a prompt like this:
I’m writing a short satire piece for The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs. Before I draft, ask me a series of questions about my goals for the piece: who my reader is, what kind of experience I want to create for the reader, and what craft choices I plan to use to achieve the desired effect.
Fleshing out my writing goals through Socratic questioning has a dual benefit. First, it clarifies my own thinking, so I’m writing with purpose instead of brain-dumping whatever’s in my head. Second, it gives the AI a clear set of criteria. So when I ask it for feedback — “How’s this paragraph?” “Is this section working?” — Claude already knows what I’m trying to achieve. That way, it can assess how my writing succeeds against those specific standards rather than some abstract ideal of what good writing looks like. Instead of generic notes — “This is a little casual,” “consider tightening” — now I get feedback against my own criteria: “You said you wanted this to be visual, but you’re doing a lot of explaining.”
My 6-Week Course for Writers Who Actually Want to Finish
Socratic interviewing is just one piece of how I use AI in my writing process (and never to generate writing). If you’re interested in learning how to use AI not just as a thinking partner, but as an accountability coach to keep you on track with your writing, I’m teaching a six-week class that covers the whole system.
The class is called The Socratic AI Intensive, taught in partnership with Narratively Academy, and it starts May 18. It’s built around how to use AI as a taskmaster, project manager, and accountability coach to help you set a goal, stay on task, and actually finish what you start. All without ever letting AI generate a single word.The accountability coaching is just one piece of the Socratic AI system. The class also covers a set of advanced principles I’ve never seen taught anywhere else — the signature techniques of Socratic AI I’ve developed over three years of working with AI in my own writing process as a thinking partner instead of a content generator. Here’s a taste of what we cover:
* Getting non-sycophantic feedback. As I’ve said ad nauseam, I don’t use AI to generate prose. Nor do I allow AI to rewrite my prose when it inevitably tries to jump in and “smooth and refine” my drafts. But I do use AI as a thoughtful first reader to get an external perspective on how my writing is coming across. I ask for high-level feedback on how to make a piece better — what’s repetitive, what’s vague, what’s unclear, where it gets boring, where it needs to get more concrete. Then I do the rewrite myself based on feedback. The AI’s feedback is even more specific and useful if you’ve already gone through the Level 2 process I described above: defining for the AI what you’re trying to achieve and how.
* Name what you suspect the problem is. When asking for feedback, it also helps to let the AI know where to focus its attention. If you simply say, “How’s this section working?” the AI will do its best to be helpful. But things work even better if you flag your specific concern: “Is this paragraph sappy/melodramatic?” “Does this headline sound defensive?” “Is it clear why she didn’t just walk back in and apologize, or do I need to spell out her motivation?” When you tell the AI what to focus on, you’ll get a better, more targeted answer.
* Socratic revision. As William Zinsser says, “Writing is rewriting.” Writing never comes out quite right the first time. What makes good writing good is revising and rewriting early drafts until they get good. To flip AI into an iterative, Socratic mode, I use one magic phrase: “iterate and improve.” My favorite Socratic prompt: “Don’t rewrite this for me. Ask me questions to lead me to my own creative insights, and give me ideas so I can iterate and improve.” The AI gives you feedback. You’re always the one writing.
* Make every conversation Socratic. AI’s default mode is to spit out answers. But AI is more helpful when it has relevant context. The problem is the context you don’t realize you’re leaving out. So even when you’re not doing a Socratic interview, you can still flip the script. In practice, I try to make all my AI conversations Socratic. Here’s a single sentence you can paste at the end of any prompt: “Before we proceed, ask me a question or two to make sure you understand what I want.” One sentence, and Claude stops guessing what you need — it asks. It’s the easiest way to break out of the vending-machine pattern.
In the class, I teach all of these techniques in detail and show you how to use them for your own writing. Five class sessions over six weeks. We’ll cover project planning, daily accountability, Socratic interviewing, iterative revision with feedback, and advanced workflows for working with AI on your actual files and projects.
The structure: Five weekly live sessions of two hours each, a system for using AI as an accountability coach, and a private community for support between sessions. You bring your writing project: a novel, a book proposal, a screenplay, a collection of essays, whatever you’ve been wanting to finish. You set an ambitious but achievable goal. By the end of six weeks, you’re done.
Here’s what you get:
* A set of tools and techniques for how to use AI to set milestones, break your project into daily tasks, and keep you on track
* A cohort of fellow writers doing the work alongside you
* Weekly live sessions with me
* A Slack channel for questions, technical help, and shared progress
This is the class where you actually finish your draft. By the end of six weeks, the project you committed to is done.
It’s $795, and Wonder Tools readers get $100 off with code WONDERTOOLS. Sign up at socraticai.co/intensive.
Jay Dixit is the founder of Socratic AI, where he teaches writers, educators, and knowledge workers how to use AI as a thinking partner instead of a content generator. He was previously Head of Community for Writers at OpenAI and has taught writing at Yale. His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Psychology Today.
Thank you Lucy Gray, Andrew Nelson, and others for tuning into the live video with Jay Dixit!


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

Mornings are for deep work. Afternoons are for everything else — teaching, planning, thinking, movement, and meetings. This is part two of my daily kit. Part one covered my morning apps. Here are the apps and gadgets that carry me through from noon to bedtime. I’ve included a few AI tools, but mostly the quieter tools that don’t get as much attention.
Catch up on Part 1 👇
12pm: Midday Break
Healthy Minds 🧠
This free app helps me with mindfulness. The 5-10 minute audio lessons work well as walking meditations. I sometimes also use Headspace or Calm for meditation or focus music.
Libby 📚
I rely on Libby for free library audiobooks. I listen when walking to lunch or commuting. Here are tools I rely on for finding great books.
Lunch
* Resy and OpenTable 🍱 for quick reservations nearby
* The Infatuation for opinionated local restaurant recommendations
* Too Good To Go for trying heavily discounted (66% off) dishes from local restaurants, bakeries, and juice bars. The fixed-price mystery bags reduce restaurant waste. Sometimes you get a delicious bargain, but the quality varies. I’ve occasionally gotten a weird bread or a bland pastry.
* MealPal When I don’t bring my own lunch, I like MealPal, a lunch subscription service. Local restaurants offer one dish a day as part of the subscription, which costs about $6/day. I like the variety: you can choose which restaurant to try on any given day. It’s available so far in 12 cities.
1-3pm: Preparing to Teach
After lunch, I continue developing teaching plans or work on other school-related projects for my job as Director of Teaching and Learning at CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. (More of my thinking in a recent Columbia Journalism Review interview).
Craft 📄
My go-to for creating visually engaging digital handouts. It’s easy to use and works wonderfully on mobile or desktop. See my post on why Craft is so useful.
Wispr Flow, Text Blaze and Raycast
* I often use Wispr Flow to type with my voice. It works in any app. I just hold the function key and talk.
* When I do type with my hands I use Text Blaze keyboard shortcuts to add snippets into my email and documents. It works for email addresses and signatures, search prompts, and phrases I type a lot.
* Raycast also works well for these shortcuts. Why I rely on Raycast.
Notes by Hand 📝
I like writing notes away from my laptop periodically to get my eyes off the screen and to change my brain mode. I alternate between:
* I use a Rocketbook reusable notebook for lists and reminders.
* A giant whiteboard helps me draw connections and play around with ideas away from the glowing distractions of my screens.
* My reMarkable Paper Pro tablet hosts notes I will return to repeatedly. What works for me, paper vs. digital
Keynote for Slides
This Mac presentation software works reliably offline or on for in-person and remote classes and workshops I lead. Keynote is now part of Apple’s new Creator Studio, a package of software that includes video and image editing tools.
I haven’t found the Keynote AI features useful so far, but the basic software is excellent for designing and delivering compelling slides.
Pricing: Keynote is free with any Mac. I wouldn’t recommend the subscription upgrade, at $129/year or $30/year for students and educators, unless you’re a heavy user of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, or the other pro software tools.
iA Presenter
I vary slide apps to keep things interesting. I sometimes write a lesson outline and paste that text into iA Presenter, which turns it into clean, typographically sharp slides. Like Keynote, it works offline. For more on why this app is so useful, watch the demo video or read my post.
Kahoot, Padlet, and Slido 🤔
I rely on this trio of teaching tools to power activities that promote active learning in classes or workshops — rather than passive listening. Here are more of my favorite apps for teaching.
Time Out for Screen Breaks⏳
I set this app to remind me to give my eyes a screen break every 15 minutes. It pulses over the screen to nudge me to stretch or look out the window. The Raycast Focus Mode also helps, blocking email and distractions during short, focused, deep work sprints.
3-5pm: Meetings 👥
I try to schedule meetings for the late afternoon to conclude the day with collaboration, after starting with more creative work.
Granola for Summaries🤖
Granola weaves my own notes into its summary, sends no bot into my Zooms, and lets me search across meetings for tasks, patterns, or insights. My full post about it👇 describes 10 of the features, along with tips, limitations, and alternatives.
Camo for Webcam Customization
Camo lets me modify my camera to zoom in, adjust lighting, or add overlays during video calls. It also lets me use my phone or other external cameras. Prezi Video and Airtime enable lower-thirds, annotations, and overlay visuals I occasionally use for presentations.
Sony UX570 Voice Recorder for Interviews
My reliable backup for recording audio. I like that it doesn't require an open laptop or running phone. I often transcribe the audio files with MacWhisper.
6pm: After work
Snipd for listening to podcasts on my commute
This smart podcast app lets me preview podcasts and save highlights to my notes. I triple-tap my AirPods to save my favorite moments to Readwise, a service that acts as a repository for highlights from my online reading, Kindle books, and other apps I use.
A recent favorite: The history of Trader Joe’s episode of the excellent Acquired podcast, which features multi-hour deep dives into remarkable companies.
Sony Noise Cancelling Headphones
I splurged on the $460 WH-100XM6 headphones to block noise on the exhaustingly loud New York City subway. I had my previous pair (WH-1000XM3) for seven years, so hopefully this investment will prove equally durable. I use them for commuting and focus music.
Nex for Games and Exercise Breaks
I love playing the sports and workout games on this family video game system. They’re all active games played with your body, not your thumbs. I play solo or with my wife & daughters. It’s like a next-generation Nintendo Wii, which we also still play (especially the balance board games).
To get away from screens, we also play these family tabletop games.
11pm: Bedtime 🌙
Glocusent Rechargeable Reading Light
This tiny $13 light clips onto any book. The battery lasts for months.
Yogasleep Dohm White Noise Machine
This $50 gadget masks random night sounds, making it easier to sleep.
Peakeep “Invisible” Alarm Clock
I turn off the display on this $13 bedside clock so it doesn’t glow at night. I tap the top to see the time if I need to. Its morning alarm lets me keep my tempting phone out of the bedroom.
That’s my noon to night kit. What tools carry you through your day?
What’s One Tool You Recommend? Leave a Comment👇


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve tried a dozen AI note-taking tools. Granola is the one I use daily and recommend most. Read on for 10 ways to make the most of it.
Bottom line: Granola transcribes and summarizes nearly every meeting I have. 998 so far. It helps me keep track of what I’ve learned and promises I’ve made.
What it does: It’s software you download, not a bot, so it doesn’t attend meetings. It just runs on my computer or phone. I can use it to record in-person meetings, or anything online: Zoom, Google Meet, or even Substack Live.
Setting it up: I connected my Google Calendar. Now it auto-detects my meetings and opens automatically when I start a call.
How it’s different: Unlike other bots that spit out a generic summary, Granola gives you a window for your own note-taking. That means I can include my own thoughts and highlight what I find most important. The summary then weaves in my own points in black, distinct from the gray AI summary notes. I can always return to either my own separate notes or the AI-assisted summary.
I can now query any meeting I’ve been in since I started using Granola in September 2024. I look for patterns across meetings and presentations I’ve given over the past couple of years.
Free or Paid: You can use Granola for free plan. You get excellent summaries of an unlimited number of meetings. I was on the free plan for more than a year. Now I pay $14/month to access all of my past meeting summaries. That also pays for better AI models, and lets me query my notes from Claude or ChatGPT.
👇10 ways Granola stands out
1. Write your own notes while AI fills in the rest
Most AI note-takers give you only the AI’s version of what happened. Granola keeps your own notes alongside the live transcript. You always have both.
I type my own most important observations, priorities, and reactions during a meeting. The AI fills in other details. This way I’m not reliant on a generic summary the way I am with other tools. My own emphasis and perspective helps shape the summary.
After the meeting, my original notes appear in black. The AI-generated content appears in gray. That’s a nice design touch, so you can easily tell which is which.
Tip: I use shorthand like triple asterisks (***) for key points and triple ampersand (&&&) for memorable quotes. Or choose your own “internal hashtags.” Pick ones easy to type during a live meeting. Later you can search for those to quickly find what you flagged as important. (Works with any tool)
2. Search across meetings by person or company 🔍
Granola organizes meetings by people and organizations. If I’ve had a series of meetings with someone, I can click their name and search across all of those conversations. Or I can search through all the conversations I’ve had with people at Acme Inc.
This is useful for questions like: What did we agree to last month? What themes keep coming up? What did I promise to send that I haven’t followed up on?
You can also create folders for specific projects or series. If I’m attending or teaching a series of workshops, I can then search across all of those sessions.
Tip: If you ever write or give presentations, ask Granola to compile key points or ideas you’ve shared in past meetings or presentations. It’s helpful for exploring and building on your own ideas. Instead of using AI to think for you, you’re using it to help you organize and make more of your own ideas.
3. Record in-person meetings w/ a phone or laptop 📱
I’ve been to public events where I wanted to remember what was discussed. The iPhone app is great. Same account, no separate setup. Your in-person notes sync with your desktop notes and appear in the same searchable archive. Other recording apps I’ve tried occasionally crash when I get a call or open other apps, but Granola has been consistently reliable, even for long meetings. I’ve been surprised to find that it works well even when I’m not sitting close to the speaker.
Available on: Mac, Windows, and iOS. No Android app yet, though one is expected later this year.
4. Start free with unlimited meetings
The free version works well if you just want to try it. The transcription quality is the same as the paid version. Students get Granola free for a year. Startups do too.
The paid plan is $14 a month. I pay that for unlimited access to my 1,000+ meeting summaries, the ability to query my notes from other AI tools like Claude, and access to the strongest AI models for summaries. The free plan limits how far back you can access old meetings and limits the AI models you have access to.
If you don’t need to refer back to old summaries or plug your notes into other AI tools, the free plan is great.
Try Granola free for a month with this link.
5. Give Claude or ChatGPT access to your Granola notes
This is one of the reasons I upgraded to the paid plan. Granola connects to Claude through something called a Model Context Protocol (MCP). Don’t worry about the technical details. It’s just a way to connect AI tools to one another.
The practical benefit: I can ask Claude or ChatGPT to look across my recent Wonder Tools Live sessions and tell me which topics I’ve talked about but haven’t written about yet. Or vice versa. Because Claude has access to my newsletter archive (via Mizal), it can consider what I’ve discussed in meetings and what I’ve published.
Sponsored Message
The Smarter Way to Read More
There are more great books than any of us will ever finish. I made peace with that, though I still wish I could read more. So I found a tool that helps.
Shortform has helped me get inside more books. I use it for books I haven’t had time to read, and to rediscover ideas from books I finished years ago but have already started to forget.
What sets it apart is that it’s powered by human writers and editors, not AI summaries. You get substantive analysis, useful examples, and quotes from the book. You also get recommendations for related titles and a one-page overview. It’s like having a smart friend sum it up for you.
A few to check out on Shortform: a guide to What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, by Laura Vanderkam (I’m a big fan) and Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin (also an author I admire). Shortform also has podcast and article guides to get the gist of long interviews or sprawling posts.
If your reading list ever creates anxiety for you, as it does for me, it’s worth a look.
Wonder Tools readers get a free trial + $50 off the annual plan. →
6. Catch up mid-meeting if your mind wanders
This is the feature that surprised me the most. While a meeting is happening, you can ask Granola to summarize what’s been said so far, or to catch you up on what you missed.
This was hugely helpful recently when I was in a live session and my mind wandered. I missed what a couple of people had just said and felt bad about it. The only way to catch up without asking them to repeat themselves was to query Granola. It instantly gave me a concise recap of the last few minutes, while continuing to transcribe the session. You can also scan back through the live transcription yourself while the meeting progresses.
7. Analyze meetings with “recipes”
Recipes are prompt templates built specifically for your meetings. Instead of recreating the same query every time, you save it once and reuse it.
A few I use regularly:
* List recent to-dos. Scans recent meetings for tasks I mentioned but may not have added to my task list. I caught a missing follow-up this way just recently. Someone asked me to send them a logo. I got sidetracked, didn’t put it on my task list. The recipe surfaced it.
* Prep next meeting. If I’ve met with someone before, it reminds me of our prior conversations. If I haven’t, it can reference other similar meetings.
* Coach me. Analyzes how I showed up in meetings and suggests what I might do differently.
* YouTube description. I created this for workshops I lead. Some of them end up on YouTube, and I usually don’t have a description for them. Granola has the full text of what I said. So the recipe helps me generate a description.
You can browse a public library of recipes and grab ones that interest you. There are special recipes for sales, marketing, customer interviews, and other common business use-cases. You can also create your own, which is as simple as writing a prompt.
8. Share meeting notes others can explore
You can share a link to a Granola summary with anyone. The person on the other end doesn’t have to log in or have a Granola account. They can read the summary and even query the transcript themselves. They won’t see your private queries, and you won’t see theirs. You can also share an entire folder with a colleague, or even a workspace with your team, if you want to have collective access to shared meetings. You can also create a separate private space within your account.
Example: Here’s a Granola summary of my most recent Wonder Tools Live Show and Tell, where I talked about why I like Granola. For context, these are live monthly sessions for paid subscribers where I show what I’m using and share tips on making the most of new tools.
9. Protect privacy with text-only transcription 🔒
Granola captures only text. It transcribes in real time but doesn’t store audio or video files. Some people don’t want to be recorded video-wise, or they don’t want their voice recorded. Granola works well for that, because it stores only text.
This is a deliberate design choice. As CEO Chris Pedregal told me when I interviewed him for Fast Company recently, the value is in useful notes, not in retaining audio. The tradeoff: you can’t go back and listen to verify a quote, or hear the emotion in someone’s voice. If that matters for your work, pick an alternative below.
10. Take private notes without a bot joining your call
Open a typical AI note-taker and you’ll see a bot listed as a meeting participant and a robotic rectangle in your video window. Some people find these bots intrusive.
Granola doesn’t join your meeting. It runs on your computer (or phone). Nobody else in the meeting needs to know it’s there, though I recommend telling them anyway. Ask if it’s OK if you use an AI note-taker to help you remember what we talk about. Your data is protected. Granola is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, which basically means an independent auditor has checked that the company has safeguards to protect sensitive info.
How Granola can make life easier
Granola is useful beyond work meetings. Here are some ways I’ve used it:
* Learn from conferences and workshops. Capture notes from panels and talks. Later, search across all the sessions. “Which speakers mentioned AI regulation?” or “What books did speakers recommend?” You get a searchable archive of an entire event.
* Catch up with online courses and webinars. I use Granola when I’m hosting or watching a Substack Live. If I have to step away, I can catch up. Or I can search across a series. “Remind me which tactics we covered.”
* Prepare for a follow-up. Use the “Prep me” recipe before meeting with someone again. It pulls together what you talked about last time.
* Capture medical or personal appointments. You can use Granola for therapy sessions, vet visits, or doctor appointments. Ask for permission. When you leave and can’t remember what the expert said about dosage or next steps, check the transcript.
How to make the most of Granola
* Ask permission first. Even though Granola doesn’t record audio, let people know you’re using an AI note-taker if it’s not a public event. I usually say something like: “Is it okay if I use an AI note-taker to sum up the meeting? I’m happy to share the summary with you. If you’d prefer, I can keep it off.”
* Split long events into separate sessions. If you’re at a three-hour workshop with distinct segments, stop and restart Granola between sections. You’ll get more detailed summaries for each section instead of one sprawling summary.
* Choose your AI model. On the paid plan, you can select an advanced AI model. I like Claude’s Sonnet 4.6 Thinking. You can switch to a Gemini or ChatGPT model.
Limitations
No tool is perfect. Here’s where Granola falls short so far:
* No audio or video playback. You can’t go back and listen to what someone said for the emotion in their voice.
* No file uploads yet. You can’t drag in an old interview recording or audio file for transcription. So far the focus is on live meetings.
* Chats can get messy. Granola doesn’t have a place to store answers you get when you query your meetings. You have to copy & paste into a separate notes tool. And it’s not optimized for taking notes without audio.
* Limited free archive. On the free plan, you only get access to 30 days of meeting archives.
* No Android app yet. Available on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. I expect the Android app to launch later in 2026.
Alternatives to Granola
Granola is best for people who take their own notes during meetings and want AI to fill in the rest. If you’re on Android, Otter is a popular alternative until Granola’s Android version is available. If you want to upload recordings, or if you need video or audio saved, you may want something else. Consider these alternatives:
* Fathom is a good option if you want video and audio recordings tied to a time-coded summary. Click on part of the summary to jump to that part of the recording. Start with the free version. It’s useful for sessions where you want to go back and watch specific moments. I sometimes use Fathom alongside Granola.
* MacWhisper is useful for transcribing audio files you’ve recorded elsewhere. It can run locally on your Mac, so nothing leaves your device. You can buy it as a one-time purchase for $74. The free version also works well.
* Supernormal is one I’ve used and liked.
* For more options: Wonder Tools contributor Ulrike Langer, who writes the great News Machines newsletter about how news orgs are using AI, recently wrote a guide to transcription tools with additional alternatives.
How to get started 🚀
* Try it for one meeting. Download Granola on Mac or Windows, or grab the iPhone app. Connect your calendar and join a meeting. Take a few of your own notes. See how Granola combines them with the transcript summary afterward.
* Try an in-person meeting. Bring your iPhone to a coffee meeting or a live event and open the Granola app. See how the mobile transcription feels.
* Chat with your first summary. After your meeting, try asking a few questions:
* “What were the three main takeaways?”
* “What deadlines or follow-ups should I remember?”
* “Summarize this meeting in 3 sentences for a colleague.”
Try Granola free for a month →
What are you using and why? Leave a comment 👇


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wondertools.substack.com

I recently talked with Jason Chatfield a New Yorker cartoonist and creator of the lively New York Cartoons Substack. He sketched while we talked, as part of his video series Draw Me Anything. We traded ideas about writing, editing, tools, and where to draw the line with AI. 📺 Watch the conversation above, or read highlights below.
Takeaways from Our Conversation 🛠️
* Teach your AI assistant to offer personalized editing suggestions. I’ve trained a Claude Project to learn from my past writing and editing. It catches typos like double commas, cliches, redundant language, weak verbs, and sloppy copy. Instead of having it make changes, I ask it for a punch list of suggestions.
* Talk before you type. I turn on my AI dictation app, Letterly, and just start talking. The AI-enabled transcription and summary I get helps me make sense of ideas rolling around in my mind. Then the next part of the writing process becomes more about shaping and editing those ideas, rather than staring down a blank screen.
* Ask AI to interview you. After a conference or a day of meetings, get your AI assistant to ask you follow-up questions. That conversation forces you to articulate ideas you haven’t fully formed.
* Teach your AI assistant to be a critic, not a ghostwriter. Ask it to challenge your structure, suggest sections to cut and to explain why, and to point out your blind spots. Your friend might be too polite to tell you a section of your piece you’ve worked on for hours is redundant or dull. Your AI assistant will, if you train it to.
* Let’s read books collectively. We’re reading 10 AI books in 2026 through the Wonder Tools Book Group. (For WT paid subscribers). We started with AI Snake Oil, whose co-author was a surprise guest at our first gathering. Reading together allows us to benefit from dialogue. And we can learn more deeply from books than we can from a random diet of posts and videos.
Sponsored Message
Build a site or app with Lovable
Try Lovable Free. Lovable lets you describe what you need and turns it into a working website or app. Now it even builds slides for you. Go from idea to polished deck in under 10 minutes. No coding needed.
I use it to quickly prototypes like an uplifting news page and a landing page for educators. Others have built everything from portfolio sites to custom business tools — you can browse hundreds of templates. If you have an idea you’ve been putting off, this is a fast way to start.
Tips Jason shared during our conversation
* Work from a calendar, not a to-do list. Sometimes what’s most valuable is a workflow, not a specific tool. Like timeboxing. Jason predicts how long a task will take, blocks time in his calendar (iCal), then learns from the difference between his estimate and how long the task actually took. His timeboxing Medium post about the process went viral.
* Build a grumpy editor. Jason created a J. Jonah Jameson–style editor persona in Gemini. If you’re not familiar with the Spider-Man character, he’s a cantankerous, chain-smoking newspaper editor who tears apart a writer’s drafts. Jason says he takes about half of the suggestions.
* Choose your tools based on who built them. Jason uses Grammarly and Gemini, but refuses to use Meta AI or Grok. If he doesn’t trust those building a platform, he opts out.
* Learn the analog way before you go digital. Jason suggests students draw by hand first, not on an iPad. If you draw a bad line with a dip pen, you can’t hit undo. You learn through that process.
* Use AI to brainstorm, but know when to stop. Cartoonist Alex Hallatt of Cartooning in the Age of AI used an AI assistant to riff on cartoon premises from messy notes. Jason said she was intrigued by the results, until the bot offered to draw the cartoon for her. 👇
Tools & Apps We Discussed 👇

After my 7am wake-up alarm, I lean on about 20 morning apps, sites and gadgets for reading, writing, listening, and getting stuff done. I revisit this toolkit every year. Here's what's stayed, what's changed, and what's new.
🌤️ 7:00 am Wake up and prepare for the day
⏰ Peakeep “Invisible” Alarm Clock
This $14 bedside clock wakes me up. I set its brightness at zero to keep the bedroom dark at night. I tap the top to check the time if I need to. I bought the clock when I decided to store my phone in another room so it doesn’t suck me in before bed.
⭕️ Oura Ring
For the past five years I’ve worn an Oura ring to keep track of my exercise, sleep, and heart rate volatility. I like that, unlike an Apple or Google Watch, it has no distracting screen or notifications.
I ran a two-week experiment pairing the Oura with a Stelo glucose biosensor to see how my diet impacts my sleep, fitness, and energy levels. I can export my data and query it with AI assistants. Or I use Oura’s own AI chat to ask things like “How is my evening snacking affecting the quality of my sleep?”
In the morning I check my sleep quality and resilience scores to calibrate my expectations for the day. Having an objective measure of how well I’ve slept helps me decide whether to push my meager exercise regimen a bit or take it easy. It also helps motivate me on dreary days, and signals when I’m getting sick before I notice.
(Read my original Oura 2020 post. Note: I’ve bought my own Oura rings — no affiliation).
🧠 Brain Games and 🎶 Music
A breakfast ritual: playing the NYTimes’ Spelling Bee, Wordle, and Connections with my wife and daughters while listening to our favorite classical music host, Jeff Spurgeon, on WQXR. We talk about the music and what’s ahead at school or work, avoiding stressful headlines.
Quick tip: We listen on our old Google Home Mini kitchen smart speaker. A quick voice command pulls up just about any radio station in the world. (I saw the newer Google Nest Mini on sale this week for $19).
Sponsored Message
Access the World’s Best Ideas
I love reading. But no matter how much I read, I can’t keep up with all the great books I hear about.
That’s why I’ve been relying on Shortform for the past several years to help catch up with books I’m curious about but haven’t had time to read. I also use Shortform to remember key points from books I read years ago. I like the biography section, where I’ve learned about the lives of Malala, Bono, and Leonardo da Vinci.
While a lot of summary apps I’ve tried have 5-min, AI-generated, surface-level book overviews, Shortform’s writers and editors produce in-depth coverage of nonfiction titles.
I also like the business section, which has detailed guides for classic titles and new books I’m curious about like Two Awesome Hours by Josh Davis. In addition to an expert-written overview of key points, with examples, excerpts, and references to related books, you get a one-page summary and contrasting ideas from other authors. Now Shortform has podcast and article guides as well. Wonder Tools readers get a discount. Try it free to explore.
Enjoy a free trial and $50 off the annual plan.
🚶🏼8:00 Walk My Daughter to School 🏫
No tools or tech.
🚊 8:25 Commute
I use Snipd to listen to podcasts on the way to work. Here’s my full take. I also rely on Readwise Reader to catch up on articles I’ve saved. It works offline on the subway. Here’s why it’s worth trying. I use Superhuman to check work email.
📆 8:50 Plan the Day
When I get to work, I map out what's ahead with a mix of paper and apps.
📅 Google Calendar I check GCal for meetings. I‘ve tried other calendars, including Vimcal, Akiflow, Fantastical, and Notion Calendar. They each have useful features, but I tend to return to the free GCal out of habit. It’s reliable, simple, and lets me easily see shared calendars.
✅ Apple Reminders I keep three priority tasks at the top of my list. I add to that tier only when I’ve completed one. I have a menu of other tasks and reminders in a “Soon” list. I adopted that tactic from Oliver Burkeman’s great book, Four Thousand Weeks.
📄 Remarkable Paper Pro Move I use this paper tablet — or a notebook — to timebox my day. I map the hours based on priorities, energy level, and scheduled meetings. Having a detailed plan helps me avoid decision fatigue later. When I inevitably lose focus, the plan pulls me back on track.
✍️ 9:00 Writing
I start creative work early, when my focus is freshest.
Letterly I dictate my thoughts into this app. That helps me get ideas flowing, and I get a bulleted summary or outline to build on. When I want an AI assistant to challenge my ideas, I use ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode or Gemini Live.
Letterly and other apps like it (AudioPen) are great for what I call bionic dictation— using AI to structure raw speech into a clean outline or summary.
Free alternatives: You can use Apple Notes for dictation on iOS or Mac, or a variety of Google apps if you’re on Android or a Chromebook.
Google Docs / iA Writer I like both of these reliable blank canvases with minimal friction. (Read my take on what’s new in GDocs and why I like iA Writer). I’m also exploring new writing apps like Versey, a minimalist editor with thoughtful AI features.
Raycast Without switching apps, I type [control-space] to open a floating Raycast window. I can then quickly add something to my reminder list or calendar, check a thesaurus, calculate something, or do other tasks. That helps maintain my writing flow. (Why Raycast is a hidden gem).
Headspace Focus music without lyrics helps me block out noise around my Times Square office.
📨 10:00 Email Sprint
Superhuman I use keyboard shortcuts to move quickly through 80 morning messages. To help me keep track of replies I’m waiting for, Superhuman lets me attach automated reminders to resurface messages weeks later. Boomerang is a good alternative for follow-ups if you use Outlook or Gmail.
Flow Dictating messages saves my hands from typing fatigue. It’s remarkably accurate and plugs text directly into whatever app I’m using.
⏸️ 10:55 Break
Wakeout This app features short video loops of real people doing stretching and cardio moves. I can imitate their movements for one-minute exercises. These body breaks improve my focus.
🔬 11:00 Research
* Perplexity provides thorough, citation-backed search results powered by AI models that understand my detailed queries. The summary saves me from digging through hundreds of raw links. (My Perplexity update).
* Claude Projects & NotebookLM These AI tools help me find common themes, key ideas, and examples in prior materials I’ve created, so I can build on my own past work. (More on Claude Projects & my guide to NotebookLM).
That's a glimpse into my morning toolkit. In a follow-up I’ll share tools I use from late morning through bedtime. 🛌
What tools are YOU using today?
Some links are referral links. In some cases they provide you with a free month of access. If you make a purchase, Wonder Tools may earn a small commission, at no cost to you.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe