A New York Mom Simplifies Her Life with AI

A New York Mom Adopts AI to Lighten Her Mental Load

Hally Peck, a busy CMO and mother in New York, has found an innovative solution to manage her hectic life. By using artificial intelligence (AI) agents like Perplexity and Claude, she has managed to automate a multitude of daily tasks. These digital tools help her not only to order groceries and enroll her children in summer camps but also to organize the family calendar, thus avoiding scheduling conflicts that could arise months in advance.

Automation for Everyday Life

In a family where both parents have demanding jobs, time is a precious resource. Hally and her husband are constantly looking for ways to automate tasks to save time. Before turning to AI, Hally often felt overwhelmed, planning her life only a few days in advance. Now, thanks to these digital agents, she can organize her family life over several months, allowing her to spend more quality time with her children on weekends. She has discovered that while setting up these automations can be time-consuming, the time and peace of mind gained are worth it.

Simplifying Grocery Shopping with AI

Grocery shopping in New York can be a real challenge for a busy mom. Hally decided to delegate this task to an AI agent. Using Perplexity, she sends her grocery list to the agent, which takes care of ordering online. The agent knows the family's preferences, from brands to types of products, and even suggests substitutions in case of stock shortages. This process, which used to take half an hour, is now completed in two minutes, freeing up valuable time for Hally.

She uses Perplexity for her grocery shopping and Claude Cowork for most of the other tasks she performs with agents. Groceries are typically delivered every Sunday evening. She informs the agent of missing items, and it knows which brands the family prefers, adding everything to the cart and flagging out-of-stock items while suggesting alternatives. The simplicity of the initial setup, which took only five to ten minutes, has transformed a routine task into a quick and efficient operation.

Optimizing Family Calendar Management

For Hally, managing work, school, and family calendars was a real headache. She now uses Claude to centralize all this information. By providing the agent with links to websites, spreadsheets, and screenshots, she ensures everything is up to date, from work conferences to birthdays. Claude even helps anticipate small details often forgotten, like buying candy for Halloween or gifts for teachers.

Recently, she entrusted Claude with her children's school calendars, including all holidays, vacations, and parent-teacher conference dates for the school year. Claude checks these events against her existing calendar and flags conflicts with already planned work trips. By detecting these conflicts months in advance, Hally can resolve or better manage them, avoiding last-minute stress.

Daily Routines Made Easier with AI

Hally has set up two daily prompts that help her stay organized. The first is a meeting preparation assistant that sends her a message on Slack every morning with a summary of the day's meetings, along with all relevant documents and context she needs before each meeting. The second is a notification she receives at 9:30 PM each evening, prompting her to jot down everything on her to-do list, whether personal or professional tasks. By typing everything that comes to mind that she couldn't accomplish that day, she ensures nothing is forgotten. The next morning, she receives a reminder so she can revisit it and plan her actions.

Managing the School Transition with AI

The transition between the end of the school year and the start of summer camps can be stressful. This year, Hally used a Perplexity AI agent to enroll her children in camps, simply providing the necessary basic information. The agent, operating on a separate browser, allows her to fill out forms effortlessly while still giving her the option to intervene if needed. This automation has allowed Hally to ensure that all registrations are complete and up to date, without the fear of forgetting an important detail.

Towards Increased Automation

Although AI is not yet functioning at 100%, Hally is considering further optimizing her processes. She is thinking about creating a dedicated email address for her AI agent to centralize information and simplify prompts. By streamlining her tasks in this way, she hopes to free up even more time and reduce her mental load. AI, while requiring some initial investment, proves to be a valuable ally for Hally in her quest for efficiency and serenity. She acknowledges that there are still tasks on her list where she would like AI to intervene, but this requires time to set up the necessary systems to achieve the desired results.