Using AI to support your wellbeing

Wrapping Up School Holidays

Here in Queensland, we’re wrapping up school holidays and heading back to school and work tomorrow for the final school term.

We just returned from a beautifully relaxing 12 days in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific with family, arriving home a few days ago. It was magical, and core memories were made. I’m still processing and unravelling how healing it was.

Mental note: I will always want—and need—a buffer transition period between holidays and the return to daily life. This time, on returning home, we’ve taken things intentionally slow and gentle, especially after a holiday that was the complete opposite with our jam-packed July cruise. That holiday was also appreciated, but this recent downtime was absolutely necessary.

Nothing is worse than getting home from a holiday and not feeling refreshed to go back to work.

Honoring Regulation

Regulation has been a big theme for me lately, and anyway I can honour that, I’ll do my best. Having a gentle reintegration period after being away from home is just one way I’m supporting my well-being.

As a good friend and mentor has recently shared, “Regulated me is SUPER ME.” I couldn’t agree more!

I’ve realised that low-demand holidays are my style in this season of life—the hectic realities of working and raising teens mean downtime is a must for me. I’m becoming more aware of my own capacities these days and unapologetically embracing what I can—and cannot—handle. Self advocacy for the win! This awareness is tied to some little health niggles I’ve been working through and prioritising, making this holiday with extended family just what the doctor ordered.

For this next quarter, my well-being and calling in all the support where needed are at the top of my list. I’m already feeling more content and zen as I make myself a priority.

Embracing Tools & Tech

Support can come in many forms, and just one of the ways I am supporting myself is embracing tools and tech.

If you’re not using ChatGPT to help with day-to-day life, here’s how I’ve been embracing AI:

• Meal Planning: I use ChatGPT to create meal plans, complete with recipes and shopping lists, making my weekly shop much more efficient.

• Organising: ChatGPT helps me prioritise tasks or break down my to-do list into manageable steps, reducing overwhelm.

• Creative Brainstorming and problem solving.

• Research and Comparison: When I need to compare products or find quick answers, AI provides clear, concise options, saving me time.

Of course, it’s not failsafe, and I don’t see it replacing true writing or research anytime soon, but it’s been fun playing around with it and knowing how to make it work for me. I feel it will only improve our quality of life as time goes by.

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How I Use AI for Meal Planning: A Real-Life Example

After we returned from our holiday, I was feeling uninspired in the kitchen. I had frozen meats and leftover rice to work with, apples that were starting to go bad, and various pantry items like green curry paste, canned chickpeas, and lentils. So I asked ChatGPT to create a meal plan based on what I had, and it even gave me a shopping list for the missing ingredients.

Here’s what it suggested:

The best part was that ChatGPT provided a full shopping list, so when I went to the store, I stuck mainly to the list rather than coming up with ideas on the spot. It saved me time and mental effort, and now I have meals planned for the week without the usual hassle.

For the old apples, ChatGPT suggested making an Apple Pastry Tart. It was a quick and simple dessert idea to use up the apples that were going bad and the pastry I had in the freezer. The tart involved layering the apples on top of puff pastry, adding a bit of cinnamon and sugar, and baking it for a delicious, easy-to-make treat. The suggestion helped turn what could have been food waste into a simple dessert or lunchboxes for the kids.

AI didn’t just streamline my meal planning and shopping; it also gave me back my Sunday to get ahead of the busy week. I prepped three dinners in advance, including two easy tray bakes, which will help take the stress out of weekday meals.

Things I’m loving right now…

• I spent all day in my PJs yesterday catching up on admin and watching the Brisbane Lions win the Grand Final—wasn’t it great? So bummed to have missed Katy Perry’s opening live, but we watched the replay.

• Hubs and I binge-watched Nobody Wants This on Netflix—it’s like a five-hour movie broken into 10 stand-alone episodes. Well, that’s how I’ll justify our 5 hour straight binge, ha! Lots of feel-good moments, plenty of out-loud laughs, and maybe even a little self-identification with the characters. Have you seen it?

• I’m about to finish the third book Sarah J Maas ACOTAR series. Have you read it? It’s got me hooked!

Until next time…
Robyn x