I Can't See the Thing I Built

Set up an automation in HighLevel, Zapier or Make and there's a canvas. You see the trigger, then the next thing, then the next. You still have to think, but the picture sits there on the screen while you build.

I've spent the last couple of months building a content system in Claude, and there's no canvas anywhere in it.

I built it across a lot of separate sessions, a piece at a time, and those sessions are scattered across Claude Chat, Claude Cowork, and Claude Code. I've built lead magnets, skills, voice profiles, brand guidelines, interactive products, scheduled tasks, and plans.

So many plans.

It started failing me this week, the first week I actually used it.

One piece of it tracks whether I've been publishing, and it told me my streak was zero during a week I'd sent two issues, because it was only counting the ones it sent itself. Another piece collects content ideas: there are forty sitting in there, and I've never opened it.

I couldn’t see how it all fit together, so I didn’t see what was missing and broken.

Working in a canvas builds the picture for you. In a chat window, the only picture is the one you're carrying in your head.

My mental map was a bunch of piecemeal, half-forgotten elements working without a clear system connecting them.

To get the thing working, I knew I’d need dedicated time to draw the map, then build the missing pieces. This has been a side quest while I've been doing client work, so I’ve been telling myself I’ll get to it tomorrow.

Except now I need it to work, and it’s a mishmash that keeps breaking.

What I should have done at the start was sit down with Claude, tell it everything I wanted to build, and have it turn that into an interactive visual so I could see whether it would do what I wanted.

That's what I'm doing this afternoon. Will report on how that goes next week.

What have you built with AI that you couldn't draw right now? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

Nathan