Most days, our hand goes impulsively to the phone or to an AI tool before we decide the roadmap of the task. The Useful Pause is about that moment, and the small gap inside it.

I am pro-technology. AI is a boon, and we should use it to grow. But we should not hand over our thinking to it. Pause, notice and then act.

The letters take small moments, like the first prompt we type or the reply we send too fast, and look for the pause in them. They are for anyone who uses AI and a phone every day and wants to keep leading the thinking.

I’m Anurag Bansal. More than 15 years of my life have gone into studying how fast technology is changing. This revolution is a little different. For the first time, we are using a tool for our thinking and reasoning. And as a parent of two teenagers in this fast-moving world of AI and social media, getting this right is how I help them become better humans.

Underneath it all is the idea I base my life on. It is called the witness, or sakshi, in Advaita Vedanta, a school of Indian philosophy. It is the part of us that watches without getting carried away. We can use technology as much as it helps us and still be the one watching.

A new letter comes every other week. Start with You Are the Watcher, and if this sounds useful, subscribe.

This newsletter used to be called Binary Circuit. The new name says what it is about now.

P.S. If you run a team or a school and want this in a room, I give talks. greenlightllc.us