I caught myself doing it again over the past few weeks.

I had just finished setting up a plugin inside Claude's Cowork mode that handles basically all of my copywriting tasks.

It was working and I was excited for at least 3 hours… Until my brain went: "Okay but what if I could do this even better in Claude Code?"

So there I was, at 11pm, trying to rebuild something that was already doing its job incredibly well. Because maybe there was a slightly better way.

I've lost count of how many times I've done this.

I keep seeing the same thing in my community too.

Someone learns a tool, starts getting results, and right when things click - something new drops. A new feature, a new platform or an update with a promise of unlocking even more productivity.

And suddenly the thing that was working five minutes ago feels kind of outdated.

We're all operating on this edge where every other day there's a possibly better solution.

And it makes you want to pause everything and chase it.

It’s the AI optimization trap and I think most of us are deep in it without realizing.

The paradox is that nobody in the AI space is actually working less IMO.

We have more tools than ever, we're faster than ever, and we are also more overwhelmed than ever.

Every time I see results, I get excited, and then I want to do more - it’s a massive dopamine rush every single time!

It's this weird cycle where progress creates more ambition which creates more things to learn and experiment with.

We went from underwhelmed ("what can AI even do?") to overwhelmed ("there are 15 ways to do this and I don't know which one to pick") really, really fast.

I have to actively remind myself that even though I have chosen the path of learning and experimenting and building a business with those tools and I actually do enjoy it - I need to start feeling satisfied and give time to integrate the things that are working for me well, share my progress with my community and then take it to the next level.

So if you're reading this and feeling that overwhelm - like you know there's potential here but you don't know where to start, what tool to learn first, whether you should even bother learning something that might be outdated next month - I want to share what's actually helped me.

Knowing what I'm trying to do right now - not next quarter, not "eventually," but what I actually need to get done this week.

When I zoom out and start thinking about all the things I could learn, I spiral.

But when I zoom in on what I'm actually trying to get done today, that's when things start moving again.

And the thing I keep coming back to: if you learn how to use your LLM well - like really well - it handles about 80-90% of what you need. I'm not even exaggerating!

Most people are using Claude to rewrite their emails in the chat and have no idea of any other features.

Things like research, connectors, skills, projects, plugins - these features were literally built to help you with your work, to solve your actual problems and make your real workflows faster.

Most people skip all of it because they don't even know it exists.

And that's wild to me, because the ROI on just learning these basics is enormous.

Once you get those down, you train a muscle that carries over to everything else.

You start spotting what to automate, what to improve, where to save time — because you actually understand the tool you're working with.

I'm not saying don't learn Claude Code or don't explore the more advanced stuff.

I think it's incredibly powerful, if I could, I would invest all my time in experimenting with them and I am doing that to the extend that I can.

But the mental jump from chatting with ChatGPT to building things in Claude Code is huge.

And if you're running your business, drowning in tasks, trying to figure out how AI fits into your day - jumping straight to the most advanced layer isn't the move.

You'll burn out or bounce off and think "this isn't for me" when really you just skipped three steps.

The basics will give you so much, so please don't skip them chasing the advanced stuff.

Set the intention to get there, but build the foundation first, because that's where 99% of the value already is for most people.

I built a Claude Power User Module that's dropping inside my community this week. It takes you from "I chat with Claude sometimes" to actually using the features that already exist to help you work better and faster.

From there, we’ll go into Cowork, and then eventually Claude Code together.

If you're building something on your own - content, digital products, services, whatever your thing is and you want to learn this step by step with other solopreneurs instead of alone, come join us in the AI Solopreneur Club.

Until next week,

Your AI Solopreneur Bestie,

Elena