The work is the story.
A personal workshop for building with AI, thinking clearly about money, and preparing a household for a changing economy.
The property — where the work happens
One place on the water: a house, a workshop beside it, and everything that gets made in between.
The workshop — working artifacts, not just ideas
Loose parts become finished things. Tools, apps and experiments assembled in the open, with the process left visible.
The study — scenarios, not forecasts
A person and a machine over the same problem, mapping the paths money could actually take instead of guessing at one.
The house — prepared, not anxious
What a changing economy asks of a household, worked out in practice rather than argued about in theory.
AI-assisted personal workshop
The work is the story.
NJL Design Lab is a personal workshop for building with AI, thinking clearly about money, and preparing a household for a changing economy.
Everything here is documented with what it does, what it cannot do, and what happens next.
Current work
Working artifacts, not just ideas.
Each project starts with a consequential question. The record includes the result, the constraint, and the next decision.
BuildingAI and household resilience
Research and planning tools about work, money, housing, children, community, and policy in an AI-shaped economy.
Released and evolvingFinancial independence
Scenario models and decision systems for testing assumptions about income, spending, housing, risk, and time.
Released; local-firstPersonal systems
Small tools, memory workflows, and repeatable systems for turning broad intentions into visible next actions.
Built with AI, on purpose.
Full disclosure is part of the work.
This website, and many of the apps and systems documented here, have been built with AI helping me turn ideas into working things. AI assists with research, drafting, code, visual exploration, testing, memory retrieval, and repetitive operations. Important claims are checked, outputs are tested, and unfinished work is labeled unfinished.
The Lab
Research, essays, and field notes.
The writing is where the reasoning, sources, and uncertainty stay visible.
AI and household resilience
How households can prepare for changing work, technology, policy, and physical constraints.
Financial independence and money
Models and guides for making decisions when assumptions, markets, and life plans are uncertain.
Building in public
Field notes from software projects, testing, recovery, and the limits that only appear in real use.
Tools and apps
Working software for financial decisions, market operations, real estate, and daily systems.
Free downloads
Published iOS apps and three spreadsheet systems are available as free downloads for trying, adapting, and keeping.
The method
Start with a useful question.
Define the problem. Make the smallest useful version. Use AI as a collaborator, not an authority. Test the result against reality. Keep the evidence, including the failure, and update the next decision.
The point of the workshop
Move with the tools without handing them your judgment.
You do not need to become an AI expert before you begin. You need a useful question, a willingness to test, and a way to keep your footing while the tools change.