You’ve Done the Work. AI Makes It Useful.
In 2023, I had 48 hours to decide whether to take a job offer or stay where I was.
I’d read Thinking in Bets a year earlier and highlighted Annie Duke’s framework for making decisions when you can’t know the outcome. I remember thinking: this is exactly what I’ll need someday.
But I couldn’t find it.
So, I Googled “how to decide between two jobs” and got advice written for someone who’s never had my job. I made the decision anyway with half the thinking I’d already done.
That’s the moment this newsletter, Words Into Works (WIW) exists to fix.
The Problem With Everything You’ve Read
You’ve accumulated years of raw material.
Recordings from client calls. Draft revisions. Meeting notes. Book highlights. Hard-won judgment from decisions that cost you something.
But when you need it, you can’t use it. Not because you don’t have the knowledge, but because you can’t access it.
So, you start from scratch. Every. Single. Time.
Most AI content is designed to replace your thinking; this is designed to activate it.
And it has a name: the Accessibility Gap.
The distance between wisdom you’ve already earned and your ability to reach it under pressure—in the meeting, in the negotiation, and in the decision that can’t wait.
What This Newsletter Does
Most people use AI to generate from nothing.
I go the other way.
I show knowledge workers how to build their own skills and workflows from the work they’ve already done, so your past work finally starts working for you.
I’m a marketer who builds these systems out of my own material: customer calls, campaign drafts, strategic decisions, email threads.
Then, I hand you the skills and workflows—tested under real constraints before any of it ships—so you can build your own.
A few examples from my own practice:
A decade of writing, turned into a Claude skill that encodes editorial judgment. The knowledge was always there. Now I can reach it.
A webinar transcript, run through one workflow. The output was coaching feedback I would’ve paid $500 for, from material I’d already paid for in time.
Six months of AI conversation history, analyzed in one pass. Patterns in my own decision-making I’d never noticed in real time. The gap, closed.
None of this required starting from a blank page. All of it required raw material I’d already created.
Explore by Topic
Every issue solves a specific version of the Accessibility Gap. Here’s how they’re organized.
Build Your Infrastructure. Claude Skills, prompt libraries, scoring systems. The tools that turn one-off wins into repeatable workflows.
Leverage Your Work. Get more from call recordings, drafts, project docs, and past decisions.
Personal Counsel. Build advisors from your own experience for when the stakes are high.
Workflow Design. Structure how you work with AI so it survives real constraints: 30 minutes of focus, constant interruptions, decisions due by EOD.
Activate Your Reading. Turn highlights, notes, and saved articles into tools you actually use.
Personal Infrastructure. Reflections, decision logs, review habits. The non-AI systems that feed everything else.
Letter From the Editor. What’s happening here at Words Into Works, and where it’s going.
Who Writes This
I’m Sam. I head up content at Creative Force and Dreem, work remote from Sweden, and parent an 8-year-old with my wife.
I’ve been writing online for more than a decade. I built an audience of 2.5 million readers and summarized more than 100 nonfiction books. But all of them piled up: quotes, takeaways, frameworks, judgment I couldn’t reach when I actually needed it.
So I started building Claude skills out of them. One turns a decade of my writing into editorial judgment I can run on demand. Another turns a call recording into coaching feedback I’d have paid hundreds for.
I build them from my own work, test them under real constraints (30 minutes of focus, Slack every four minutes, a decision due by EOD), and every Monday I hand one to you.
The work was always real. And for years I thought that was enough. But it wasn’t until AI that I saw the real problem: getting to it when it matters. That’s what Words Into Works fixes.
“I’ve read your emails for a damn long time. Now I’m glad to pay something back.” — Greg, paid subscriber
This Is For You If:
You have raw material collecting dust (highlights, recordings, drafts, notes)
You use AI but want more than blank-page generation
You’d rather build systems than chase hacks
You suspect your past work should compound, but it doesn’t
This Is Not For You If:
You want AI to think for you
You’re here for the latest tool drops and AI news
You prefer consuming to building
Free vs. Paid
Free subscribers see how I think: the philosophy, the approach, the “why.”
Paid subscribers get the tools: every Claude skill, workflow, and system I build. Ready to use.
What This Runs On
Every Monday, I’ll give you the skill or workflow, and the thinking behind it, ready to use on your own raw material.
Join 11,000+ knowledge workers if you’re ready to start putting to use what you’ve already done.
