Starting at the Top of the Hill: Hacking Inertia with AI
- Rich Washburn
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
We’ve all heard it a thousand times: if you want tomorrow to go well, prep the night before. Lay out your plan. Line up your tasks. Clear your desk. Productivity 101. And sure, most of us do this in some form. Even if you’re not punching things into Google Calendar, you’re lying in bed mentally rehearsing tomorrow—what needs to get done, who you need to call, what’s going to land on your plate.
That’s inertia at work. You’re trying to give yourself a head start so you don’t wake up at zero.
But here’s where I broke the mold.
Instead of turning it over in my head like a hamster on a wheel, I grab my iPad—the same one I was just watching YouTube on—and I open up my custom GPT. Then I just start talking. Not typing. Not formatting. Not pretending I’m polished. Just blurting. Half-formed ideas, tomorrow’s tasks, emails I need to write, project notes—everything swirling around in my head.
Once I hand it off to the bot, it’s gone. Offloaded. Bag checked. I can close the lid, roll over, and go to sleep with a clear mind. And when you live most of your life inside your own head, that’s a game changer.
That’s step one in hacking inertia.
Waking Up Already in Motion
The magic is the handoff. When morning hits, I’m not dragging myself into the day by opening ten tabs. I’m not doomscrolling. I’m not burning 45 minutes “warming up.” I just pick up where I left off.
That same GPT is synced across my phone and desktop, so the conversation is right there waiting for me. Coffee in hand, I can walk, ride the Segway to Starbucks, or even hit the gym while it talks to me through an earpiece. No screens, no juggling devices—just me and my thoughts, guided by a tool that’s already holding the bags.
By the time I sit down at my desk, the heavy lift is done. I’ve already thought through comms, iterated ideas, drafted outlines, even blocked out the day. I don’t start at the bottom pushing a rock—I start at the top of the hill, and gravity takes care of the rest.
That’s step two.
Why It Works
We’ve always offloaded weight when it made sense. Golfers don’t carry their own bags—they’ve got a caddy. CEOs don’t chase down every detail—they’ve got staff. We outsource, automate, and delegate constantly in the physical world.
Now we can do the same thing for cognition. Why waste brain cycles retreading the same basic tasks when you could hand them off and save your mental fuel for where it actually matters?
That’s inertia. That’s momentum.
Cognitive Scaffolding in Action
I’ve been thinking about this for a while under the umbrella of cognitive scaffolding (see: Accidentally Unlocking Personal Cognition). The idea is simple: instead of fighting how your brain works, build external supports that amplify it.
This nightly brain dump + morning conversation routine is scaffolding in real time. It clears the noise, accelerates inertia, and multiplies output without multiplying effort. I routinely turn one day into three—not because I grind harder, but because I’ve designed the slope.
Here’s my challenge: build your own morning GPT. It doesn’t matter if it’s pulling your calendar, serving industry news, or just holding space for brain dumps. Program it so all you have to do is say, “Good morning,” and it delivers what you need.
Offload your thoughts before bed. Wake up with momentum already waiting. Start your day at the top of the hill, not pushing rocks in the dark.
And because I don’t want you staring at a blank page wondering how to build it, I made you a tool: a bot that builds your morning bot. Feed it a few basics about what you want in your morning routine, and it will spit out a ready-to-use custom GPT prompt you can copy, paste, and start using immediately. Iterate, tweak, refine—but at least you won’t be starting from zero.
Because that’s the whole point here: stop starting from zero.
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