The Briefing Was a Poem. The Compass Is Still Mine.
My AI gave me a morning briefing that read like a poem. It was useful. It was even beautiful. And it made me think hard about what I still need to hold for myself.
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By Paul Nunesdea, CPF, PhD
Healthy minds in the age of AI
A personal journal and public experiment exploring how experienced professionals can use artificial intelligence creatively and productively — while protecting what matters most.
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What is this?
I'm Paul Nunesdea, PhD, CPF — a facilitator, researcher and intensive AI user. I spend much of my professional life helping people think together in complex settings, and much of my private curiosity wondering what increasingly intelligent tools are doing to the way I think for myself. Brain Hygiene is where those two questions occasionally meet. This journal is where I think out loud. The retreats are where some of these ideas are explored away from screens, in nature, with space to notice what matters.
Four threads — in the journal and in the retreats
- AttentionWhat AI is doing to our focus — and what helps us recover the capacity to stay with a thought.
- Rest & RecoveryWhy cognitively demanding work depletes us — and what genuine recovery looks like.
- Purpose & DirectionStaying anchored to what matters when tools, information and expectations keep accelerating.
- Thinking TogetherHow attention, hierarchy, environment and meeting design shape our capacity to reason with other people.
From the journal
What scientists can teach us about thinking together
Science has protocols for almost everything that matters. But what is the protocol for thinking together?
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What Five Days Away From AI Taught Me
Five nights in Sesimbra, by the sea. My use of AI dropped almost by itself — and something interesting happened to the unfinished thoughts.
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A growing library
Books, tools, and ideas I keep returning to — curated slowly, with care.
Stolen Focus — Johann HariWhy We Sleep — Matthew WalkerDeep Work — Cal NewportObsidian
Nature-based leadership
Step away. Reconnect. Reignite.
Transformative retreats for executive women — grounded in nature, facilitated with care, designed for genuine renewal.
A community space
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Occasional notes from the journal — no noise, no algorithm. Just honest thinking about minds and machines.