How I Built My AI Toolkit (And Why I Only Kept 3 Tools)
The Mess Before the System
I didn’t come to AI for optimization. I came to it broke, burnt out, and trying to rebuild something real.
Most people start their AI journey chasing the next shiny object. I started mine because I had no other choice.
After my third failed attempt at building a sustainable content business, I was left with an empty bank account and that familiar ache of wondering if I’d ever get it right. All around me, people were launching AI tools and promising instant results.
I fell for it. Hard.
Over six months, I spent money I didn’t have on 14 different AI tools. Each one promised to be the solution. Each salesperson assured me their product was the missing piece.
They weren’t.
The problem wasn’t the technology. The problem was me chasing complexity when what I needed was clarity.
My Google Drive became a graveyard of half-finished articles. My calendar was packed with demos for tools I’d abandon within weeks. My credit card statements showed the trail of monthly subscriptions I kept forgetting to cancel.
The lowest point? Sitting in my apartment at 2 AM, surrounded by notebooks filled with “perfect systems” that never saw the light of day, realizing I had become exactly what I despised: someone who consumed content about creating content, but never actually published anything worth reading.
That night, I made myself a promise: No more tool-hopping. No more “just one more app” syndrome.
I established one non-negotiable rule: If it drains me, I cut it.
What Makes It into My Toolkit (And What Doesn’t)
When you’re rebuilding from nothing, you don’t have the luxury of complexity.
I needed tools that gave me two things: calm and clarity. Nothing else mattered.
Calm meant I could open the tool without feeling overwhelmed by features I didn’t need. Clarity meant the tool did exactly what it promised without making me jump through hoops.
- They promised everything but delivered confusion
- They required hours of setup before producing anything useful
- They solved problems I didn’t actually have
I stopped asking “What can this tool do?” and started asking “Will this tool help me publish consistently?”
My testing process became ruthlessly simple:
- One tool at a time. No exceptions.
- Real workflows only. No hypothetical use cases.
- Two weeks of consistent use before making a decision.
- If it didn’t make my work noticeably better, it was gone.
This approach meant saying no to tools that everyone else seemed to love. It meant ignoring the “you need this!” posts flooding my feeds.
But it also meant finding clarity for the first time in years.
The 3 Tools That Stayed
Claude: For Drafting with Structure
Claude isn’t the only AI assistant out there, but it’s the only one that didn’t make me feel like I was fighting against it.
What made it stay in my toolkit:
- It respects my voice instead of imposing its own
- It drafts structured content that actually sounds like me
- I can give it messy instructions and still get usable results
- It doesn’t try to be smarter than me – it amplifies what I already know
My workflow is straightforward: I give Claude a rough outline, key points I want to hit, and examples of my tone. What comes back isn’t perfect, but it’s a solid foundation I can edit into something real.
I don’t use it to create final content. I use it to overcome the terror of the blank page – the thing that kept me stuck for years.
ConvertKit: For Trust-Based Email
I tried four different email platforms before settling on ConvertKit. Not because it has the most features, but because it has the right ones.
What made it stay in my toolkit:
- Simple automation that doesn’t require a PhD to set up
- Clean templates that put the focus on my words, not fancy designs
- Tagging that helps me understand what my readers actually care about
- Straightforward analytics that tell me what’s working without overwhelming me
Email marketing used to be the task I’d put off until tomorrow (which became next week, which became never). ConvertKit made it the part of my workflow I actually look forward to.
Why? Because it lets me focus on the message, not the mechanics.
WordPress + Rank Math: For Publishing and SEO
I know WordPress isn’t an AI tool. But combined with Rank Math for SEO, it’s the foundation that everything else builds upon.
What made it stay in my toolkit:
- Familiar enough that I don’t waste time learning new interfaces
- Rank Math gives me actionable SEO guidance without making me feel stupid
- Both are stable enough that I don’t worry about them breaking
- They handle the technical details so I can focus on writing
I tried more advanced publishing platforms. I tested SEO tools with AI-powered everything. But they all added friction to the publishing process. And when you’re rebuilding, friction is the enemy.
What I Removed (And Why)
The tools that didn’t make the cut weren’t bad products. They just added complexity without adding value:
- Five different AI writers that generated content that sounded like everyone else’s
- Two “all-in-one” platforms that tried to do everything but did nothing well
- Three SEO tools that gave me so much data I felt paralyzed
- A content calendar that took longer to maintain than the content itself
Want to see how I turned this into a real system? Read how I built my AI blog funnel here.
I didn’t need more features. I needed more focus.
Why I Built This Toolkit for Others
After six months with my stripped-down system, something changed. I was publishing consistently. My email list was growing with people who actually opened my emails. Search traffic started trickling in.
Nothing explosive. Nothing worth making a YouTube thumbnail about. Just steady progress.
Then the questions started coming:
- “What tools are you using?”
- “How did you set up your system?”
- “Can you show me how you’re doing this?”
I realized I wasn’t the only one drowning in options. I wasn’t the only one burned out from chasing the perfect stack of tools that would somehow make success inevitable.
That’s when I decided to package my system into a toolkit others could use.
Not because it’s revolutionary – it’s not. Not because it’s the “ultimate” anything – it’s definitely not.
But because it’s real. It’s what actually worked for me when nothing else did.
Start With What Works
If you’re spinning your wheels trying to “get everything set up” — stop. I spent months in that trap, and it leads nowhere.
Start with what works. These 3 tools helped me rebuild with intention.
They’re not the only tools that work. They might not even be the best tools for you specifically. But they’re a foundation you can trust – one that won’t collapse when you actually start building on it.
The system isn’t perfect. I’m not perfect. But both are good enough to make progress. And progress beats perfection every single time.
👉 Download the free AI Toolkit here — no fluff, just my real setup.
