I went dark for two weeks. Here's what I was doing.
Issue #7
Two Wednesdays ago, I wrote an essay called “Why I’m Letting You See More of Me” — the first one in this column — and a little while later, I got the first real subscriber reply I’ve ever gotten. Someone I’d never met, cheering me on. I read it three times standing at the kitchen counter.
And then I went silent.
I haven’t sent you anything in two weeks. I needed a break, and I was using the systems.
I want to tell you what that means. Not because I owe you an explanation — you signed up for a newsletter, not a confessional — but because the reason I went dark is also the reason I’m writing today.
About 6 months ago, I started doing three things at the same time that I had no business doing at the same time. I was preparing to open my freelance law practice. I was building Batesly. I was debugging Codie. And somewhere in the middle of those things, I was also trying to be the kind of mother I want my kids to be proud of — present, organized, not eyeing my phone during school pickup. I was failing at one of those three on most days.
For a while, I told myself the problem was just volume. Three jobs is too many jobs — of course I was failing. But on the afternoons I had a clear two-hour block, I'd still fail at small things. Fifteen minutes to write a LinkedIn post on my way to a networking thing, and the post wouldn't get written. Twenty minutes between client calls to respond to the school email, and the email would sit. So it wasn't the minutes. Something else was wrong.
What I eventually figured out is that every task started from zero — I'd sit down with the fifteen minutes I had and spend the first five rebuilding what I already knew. What my voice sounded like that day, trying to pick up from where I left off. Who I'd already said what to. Which kid had an extracurricular that evening. What my standing answer was to the request for another volunteer gig something-or-other for the PTA. The minutes weren't missing; I just couldn’t get started (it’s hard to be inspired to write when you’re running on fumes).
So I built an AI system for myself.
A Claude project that holds my life — my family, my vendors, my decisions, my rhythms. It keeps me organized.
The two weeks I spent away from this newsletter, I was using it to clear two weeks’ worth of accumulated everything. Email drafts I’d been putting off. School logistics I’d been winging. A memo I’d been promising myself I’d write. LinkedIn posts. An update for Batesly. A vendor renegotiation for the cleaning service. And — I’m noting this without irony — a stretch of actual rest, on purpose, for the first time in a millennia.
The part that I sat on for a while: I think a lot of the women I know would want these too.
I’m offering to build it for you, too.
AI Chief of Staff.
I build you a Claude project trained on your life — your family, your vendors, your standing decisions, your patterns, your activities. It coordinates the calendar, manages the vendors, drafts the school emails, holds the recurring decisions, runs your standing cadences. The Chief of Staff function your business has, for everything else.
The product version exists because enough people have asked some version of how do you actually do all of this? — and the honest answer is, I don’t. The systems do a third of it.
Today is the announcement.
If one of these sounds like you — check out my website link above. If it doesn't, but you know a woman who'd recognize herself in this essay, please forward it to her.
What’s on your mind?
I want to hear from you on this one. If you’ve thought about hiring help — a human assistant, a coach, a chief of staff, a ghostwriter — and bounced off because of cost, fit, or trust, I want to know what stopped you. Reply to this email; I read every one. I’ll likely write the next post about what you tell me.
To the subscriber who replied after the first Margins: thank you. Your message was the first real sign that someone was reading. It's part of the reason I came back to this column instead of letting it lapse.
— Rachel
