Welcome to Issue 187 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. Was this email forwarded to you? You can subscribe here.

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Confidante: Hi.

I have to be honest with you: I'm sick of talking about Artificial Intelligence. 

Yes, it's useful. Yes, it's helpful. But some days, I just need a break. It's everywhere; remember when it wasn't?

I'm tired of the bros on LinkedIn selling "secret" prompts to anyone who comments "UNLOCK" on their silly LinkedIn carousels.

I'm bone-weary of the doubt I feel when I admire another writer's work online and wonder if they might've used gen A.I. or whether it was all them...?

And then I wonder... welp, does it matter? Weary.

I'm low-key stressed about the future of marketing because writing and creativity and the important, valuable, blood-and-sweaty work of it is becoming invisible: Everyone assumes it should be push-button instant.

And I'm high-key worried about future generations... and their ability to think. Thinking is boring and slow. And no one likes blood-and-sweaty work. Not even me.

Mostly, I'm stressed about this:

We've made patience feel like a liability.

* * *

Lately I've also been thinking about the value of another kind of A.I.

The kind that deepens your focus. Sharpens your senses. Immerses you in your work. Sets up blinders for distraction by default.

But wait! There's more! This other A.I. also offers natural language processing! A platform-agnostic design! Device-independent access! Limitless text-generation capacity and a unified user experience!

What kind of magical sorcery is this...?!

(Maybe your jumpy brain has already glanced the answer below?)

Today, we're looking more closely not at Artificial Intelligence... but at Analog Intelligence. And how we need it so very much here in 2025.

(Could we manifest a LinkedIn Bro to offer secret analog prompts to anyone who comments "FERRULE"?)

(LOL... I wish.)

We tend to think of analog as outdated—pencils, film cameras, record players, rotary phones, VHS tapes. Analog as another word for old.

Yet analog isn't about nostalgia. It's about connection.

Analog is physical. It's how we experience something directly, without a mediating screen or algorithm in between.

In a world that's increasingly broken into pixels, swipes, predictive text, and data points... I'm finding myself balancing all of it by drifting on occasion back to analog.

Analog trains our patience.

Analog boosts our brains.

Analog helps us trust ourselves instead of always outsourcing our ideas and decisions.

* * *

Pause here because the word nerd in me just went down this rabbit hole: What does analog actually mean?

"Analog" comes from the Greek roots:

• ana- = up, back, again
• logos (λόγος) = ratio, word, reason

Originally, it described things that exist in proportion to each other—where one thing mirrors or corresponds to another.

That's where we get the words analogous (next to) and analogy (how one thing compares to another).

Similarly, analog tools connect us to ourselves: to our creativity and humanity—in real, tangible, sensory, hands-on, textured ways. They let us experience the world around us without an algorithm or machine butting in.

Maybe you're stressed a little at this idea—like I'm about to start carving this newsletter on stone tablets and you're going to have to accept drop-ship delivery every other Sunday morning. But noooooo.

Analog isn't better than digital.

We often frame them as rivals—vinyl vs. streaming, pencils vs. keyboards, typewriters vs. ChatGPT. But that's not true.

Analog vs. digital isn't about choosing chisels over pixels. It's about choosing the best tool for the job for you at those times you need it.

When you want time to wander.

When you need time to connect.

When you need to give yourself time to be brilliant.

* * *

"sTAy HuMaN!" We hear. "Machines can't replace that!" Even the LinkedIn Bros nod vigorously, amped as they are on cold brew and self-optimization podcasts.

The advice though is so frustratingly nonspecific, isn't it?

Stay human how...? you wonder, staring at the blinking cursor. (You're tempted to prompt Claude: How do humans stay human question mark.)

Analog Intelligence is how.

In the Age of Artificial, Analog Intelligence is crucial.

👉 Analog habits help you notice. They sharpen discernment. They help you hear your own signal and trust yourself before you start asking others for theirs.

In that way, analog isn't a throwback—not at all.

Analog is about training for the future. Analog is a way to strengthen the uniquely human capacities that will matter more, not less, in a machine-mediated world.

👉 You're creating a path. Writing things down or working things out by hand gets things out of your head. Over time, patterns emerge. You notice what you notice... to get a little meta about it.

👉 Analog is the ultimate fighter for single-tasking. It defaults our focus onto one thing—not that ping that popped up in Slack or email or the text that came in. You literally cannot flit between tasks.

Multitasking nibbles at our attention—your brain pays a "switching tax" every single time you drift over to a new tab and back again. Analog helps you choose one thing and give it your full attention.

P.S. The LinkedIn Bro who claims to be great at multitasking is mostly just great at being distracted. Multitasking is just distraction dressed up as productivity.

👉 Create space for flow. Analog silences the noise. Shuts the door. And gives your brain and body one single path instead of a superhighway.

It's about moving intentionally and consciously through a question, a problem, or a moment.

There's a relief and small rebellion in it, when you think about it.

* * *

Perhaps no one is associated more with generative AI than OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman.

You'd expect him to be Extremely Online. Perhaps he'd think through ideas with a Sam-shaped hologram clone. ("SAM! SAM! SAM!" the LinkedIn Bros chant, looking up, eyes shining like Minions worshipping The Claw.)

But no.

Sam values Analog Intelligence along with Artificial Intelligence.

Writing helps him "think more clearly," he said in a recent interview with Dave Perell. Not typing. Not talking. Writing longhand in a spiral notebook.

"I go through 2 or 3 of these a month," he says, waving the notebook in the air. "I'm convinced there are ideas [that] I would never have sitting and talking with people, that I just need to sit and type for."

* * *

Which isn't to say that writing in a notebook—even with a beauty like the Blackwing pencil, above—is the only way.

There's no One Way to Analog Intelligence. There's only the way that works for you. 

So here's my challenge:

>>> In the next 2 weeks, find ONE way to boost your Analog Intelligence. <<<

Analog Intelligence isn't a checklist. It's not a prompt. It's a choice to engage with the world more fully. Which is why it shows up differently for each of us.

For some of us, it's writing longhand on a tablet or in a notebook. For others, it might be walking without earbuds. Or sketching. Listening on vinyl. Or using index cards or Post-its or a whiteboard or a puppet show.

Anything that's tactile and temporal and tethering and (ultimately) transformative. ("Terrific!" you say.)

* * *

Next time, I'll share some Analog Intelligence boosters to get you started, backed by science.

And maybe... I'll include your Analog Intelligence approach, too?

Notice what opens you up. Then hit reply and let me know what you do or what you tried!

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DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS

If you ever think you're bad at marketing, you're not as bad as this.

Thanks for reading this far.

Thanks for your kindness and generosity.

🫡 See you June 1!

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