The Missing Manual Show

What happens when you build something useful in AI and then life gets in the way for two weeks? Most people lose everything they built and start over. In this episode of The Missing Manual, Julia Levy and Jenny Cotie Kangas show you how to pick back up without losing momentum — using their own podcast production system as the case study.
Julia and Jenny walk through re-grounding their Claude project, recovering prior work from across tools, and building a five-phase process map with a companion grounding document that will anchor every future session. They cover why you need two paired documents for any mapped process — a visual map and a context document that captures what the map cannot — and why those documents are what make automation possible later. Jenny's core principle throughout: if you don't collect the dots, you can't connect the dots.
The episode closes on what Julia calls the most important document they produced all day: the handoff. When you are doing big thinking work in AI, the context window is limited, and compiling too much on top of itself leads to hallucinations. A clean handoff document at each stopping point is not overhead — it is the system that lets you come back. This applies to podcast production, client deliverables, hiring processes, or any repeated work effort where continuity matters.
The Missing Manual exists because the how is missing everywhere. This episode is the how for anyone who has ever started something in AI, paused, and wondered how to find their way back in. Find The Missing Manual wherever you listen to podcasts.

Welcome back to The Missing Manual with your hosts, Julia Levy and Jenny Cotie Kangas (JCK). In this episode, we are right in the middle of a multi-part series detailing the real, unvarnished work it takes to build a content engine and operationalize AI for daily work.
Too often, people get frustrated with AI because they expect it to read their minds. Today, we demonstrate a core truth: you cannot automate what you cannot see. We share our personal back-and-forth building a comprehensive Markdown instructions file for our Claude Projects. We discuss the transition from tactical execution (acting as a production assistant) to strategic advisory (acting as an operational Chief of Staff).
Whether you are looking to scale an internal talent function, smooth out cross-functional handoffs, clean up your Canva asset pipelines, or just fix your messy workflows, this episode provides a strategy-first framework for learning out loud.
Inside the Episode:
The Split Path: How we navigated different ideas for our next steps by letting AI evaluate the best operational path forward.
The Dual-Mode Prompt: Designing system instructions that govern both administrative task delivery and high-level decision tracking.
The Crucial Prerequisite: Spotting gaps in your operational process (like missing template locks) before pushing a workflow live.
The Handoff Habit: Why generating a clean handoff document at every natural pause is the secret weapon to preventing context drift and saving your sanity.
Don't forget to look out for our upcoming episodes where we operationalize this live and push our first episodes through the new engine to see where it breaks—and how we fix it.
If you enjoyed this strategy-first look into practical AI application, please remember to like, subscribe, and share this episode with someone trying to streamline their daily operations!

Documenting the Mess Before You Automate
"Automating a broken process just breaks things faster." 
In this episode of The Missing Manual, JCK and Julia take you behind the scenes of their own operational chaos. This is part 3 of our ongoing series on operationalizing AI for a specific, real-world use case: running this exact podcast.
Julia does a complete verbal download of the current, highly manual production workflow, from editing in Riverside and wrestling with inconsistent thumbnail creation in Canva/Google, to manual file renaming on her Mac downloads folder and navigating the LinkedIn algorithm. 
Before touching a single automation line, the team uses Claude to map out the current state. JCK steps onto her soapbox to explain why HR, TA, and business leaders must document every shadow process and departmental variation before trying to automate. If you don't map the friction, you simply bake the friction directly into your AI system.
Tune in to hear:• The critical difference between automating a process and optimizing it first.• How to use your least favorite manual tasks as a bullseye for AI opportunities.• The debate: Do you fix the gaps before you write the project instructions, or solve them inside the system?
Stay tuned for the next episode as we dive into defining the rules of the road and building out the actual project instructions!

Two Brand Voices, One Show: How We Train AI to Speak for Both of Us
When two distinct creators collaborate, how do you ensure the content speaks with a unified voice—without losing the hard-earned, earned beliefs of either host?
In this episode of The Missing Manual, Julia Levy and Jenny Cotie Kangas dive deep into the mechanics of operationalizing their show using AI. This isn't about quick hacks or shortcuts; it's a strategic, behind-the-scenes look at how to merge individual "Brand Voice Bibles" into a singular, cohesive AI grounding document.
Tune in as we discuss how we are training our AI to step into the role of our virtual Production Assistant and Chief of Staff. You’ll learn how to establish unified guardrails (like our shared, yet distinct, hatred of the em-dash), how to handle stylistic friction, and why the secret to scaling your workflow lies in defining a clear "blueprint for good."
Key Takeaways for Your Work:
Don't get stuck on the tool: The foundational strategy applies whether you are using Claude Projects, Gemini Gems, or Custom GPTs.
Why your AI needs to know what "bad" looks like just as much as it knows what "good" looks like.
The workflow pipeline: How to collaborate with the tool to get a draft 85% of the way there, and how to feed your final 100% version back in to train it for the future.
Have you built a grounding document for your own business operations yet? Let us know your thoughts on LinkedIn at The Missing Manual page!

In this episode of The Missing Manual, Julia Levy and Jenny Cotie Kangas teach you how to build an AI workflow for any repetitive task by working through a real example in real time. They use their own podcast production process as the case study, but the framework they walk through applies to almost anything clunky and manual that drains hours from your week. The three moves are simple: follow the friction, map the process, reverse engineer it with AI and automation.
Julia and JCK make the case that the real skill in working with AI is not picking one perfect tool, it's knowing when to use best-in-class for a specific gap and when good-enough all-in-one is the smarter call. Julia brings the operator's lens from her work in talent acquisition leadership, where she's evaluated this exact tradeoff with talent technology. JCK reframes the conversation around systems thinking, pushing listeners to zoom out from the specific use case and look at the underlying pattern they can copy.
A through-line of the episode is keeping the human in the loop on purpose. AI tools still produce odd outputs, hands with extra fingers, faces that drift across ethnicities, so the hosts are designing their workflow to let AI generate a slate of options while a human makes the final call. It's a practical model for anyone who wants to use AI without handing over judgment.
This is the kickoff of a multi-part series on The Missing Manual where Julia and JCK build the workflow live, including the stumbles. If you have a repetitive task at work or at home that is ripe for automation, this episode gives you the framework to start on it today.
Find The Missing Manual wherever you listen to podcasts.

"Hope is not a strategy."
If your desktop is a sea of icons and your Downloads folder is a graveyard of unnamed PDFs, this episode is for you. Julia and JCK dive into a practical, day-to-day use case for AI that goes beyond the hype: digital organization.
In this episode, we document the process of turning digital chaos into a streamlined system. We discuss the shift from "manual" organization to "agentic" workflows, where the AI doesn't just give you a template, it co-creates a methodology with you.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why "mowing the grass" is the best metaphor for digital maintenance.
How to use Claude Co-work to audit your hard drive and flag duplicates.
The difference between "chasing best practices" and building a system that fits your specific brain (The "One Size Fits One" approach).
How to stop wasting mental calories on file management and start "capacity enabling" your work week.
Resources Mentioned:
Claude Co-work
The "Grass Mowing" Prompt (Check our YouTube for the screen share!)
Connect with us: Follow Julia Levy and Jenny Cotie Kangas on LinkedIn for more "Strategy, Not Hacks" and AI-driven insights. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Missing Manual on YouTube to see the live demos!

In this episode of The Missing Manual, JCK and Julia Levy go "under the hood" of their own AI experiments to discuss what happens when the tech fails to meet your standards. From Julia’s frustrating experience cloning her voice to JCK’s "agentic design" approach, they break down why AI is a "one-size-fits-one" solution.
They explore the "Step Zero" of process mapping, the power of handoff documents, and why you should treat different LLMs (Claude vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini) like specialized team members rather than a single source of truth.
THE BREAKDOWN:
[00:00] Intro: The Missing Manual for TA leaders and practitioners.
[01:06] Julia’s Use Case: Building a Talent Intelligence web app and the frustration of "bad" AI voice clones.
[02:15] Defining "Good": Why AI reverse-engineers the wrong results without established guardrails.
[03:15] The Golden Rule: Don’t use AI to automate a broken process (Stop making "better bad processes").
[04:36] Model Switching: When to use Gemini vs. Claude vs. ChatGPT for specific tasks.
[09:31] The "Learning Out Loud" Community: Curating your own AI news pulse.
[11:18] Beyond Business: How Julia used AI to plan a multi-generational family trip to Moab, Utah.
[15:54] The "Challenge Me" Prompt: How to stop your AI from being a "Yes-Man."
[19:39] Final Summary: The critical role of Handoff Documents in grounding your AI.

Tired of your AI losing the plot mid-conversation? Learn why Agentic AI requires Handoff Documents to prevent hallucinations and maximize your token usage in Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT.As we move further into the era of Agentic AI, the biggest hurdle isn't the AI's capability, it's its memory. In this episode of The Missing Manual, Julia Levy and JCK (Jenny Cotie Kangas) break down the "handoff" workflow. We explore how AI weights the end of long conversations more heavily than the initial guardrails, often leading to "side quests" and errors.Whether you are building custom agents for home improvement or managing complex HTML coding projects, a Handoff Document acts as a strategic SOP for AI. It captures model numbers, root causes, and version history, allowing you to "collect the dots" and restart fresh without losing progress.What you’ll learn in this episode:The technical "hockey stick" effect of AI credit usage.How to force an AI to generate its own version-controlled handoff.The difference between a "Calibration" and a standard audit.Real-world demo: Troubleshooting a gas fireplace using a specialized GPT.⏳ Timestamps (For SEO Chapters)00:00 Intro: The Missing Manual Part 3 01:15 What is a Handoff Document in Agentic AI? 02:30 Why Claude and GPT-4o "forget" your instructions 04:00 Julia’s secret to stopping Gemini hallucinations 06:15 LIVE DEMO: Building a Handoff Doc for home repairs 09:45 The "How would you improve this?" power-prompt 12:30 Organizing your AI Handoffs: Folders vs. Trackers 15:00 Why your business needs AI SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) 20:00 How to share AI context with your team 21:00 Final Tips: When to hit the "restart" button

In Part 2 of our Agentic AI series, we get tactical. Julia and JCK discuss the Brand Voice Artifact—a project designed to ensure AI never misses your tone, style, or specific "guardrails" again.We explore how Julia used her book, transcripts, and frameworks to create a custom "Gem" in Gemini that acts as her professional voice clone, and how JCK uses "Usage Guardrails" to push back on the AI when it gets too generic.What you’ll learn today:How to collect 'The Dots' (transcripts, writing samples) for your AI.Creating a Brand Artifact vs. a simple prompt.The 'Nuance' check: Getting AI to understand your specific audience.How to handle usage limits and 'maxing out' Claude/GPT.

Are you just putting AI on top of a broken process? In the premiere of our 3-part Agentic AI series, Julia and JCK pull back the curtain on Agentic AI—the move from "generative" (creating text) to "agentic" (taking action).JCK shares her journey from a Johns Hopkins AI program to building "Action-Engineered" agents, while Julia discusses how to balance innovation with enterprise risk and PII concerns.In this episode:The "See One, Do One, Teach One" framework for mastering AI.Why you must map your process "Heat Map" before touching automation.Democratizing technology: Building a viable product in 15 minutes.SERIES SCHEDULE: > * Part 1 (Today): The Foundation.Part 2 (Tuesday, April 21): The Brand Voice Artifact.Part 3 (Thursday, April 23): The Handoff Document & Scaling.