How I use Codex as my personal Wingman
Sometimes I have to tell it that a perfectly sensible suggestion simply does not feel like me.
I use Codex as a personal Wingman that knows my history, how I work and what I am trying to achieve.
Over time, I have given Codex access to nearly all the digital history I have been able to collect: old emails, documents, meeting transcripts, LinkedIn activity, notes, plans, decisions, conversations and work I have created over the years. All of that stays in my own private system. Codex can search it when we are working on something, so I do not have to begin every conversation by explaining my life and career again.
It also knows a lot about how I work. I get energy from good conversations, connecting ideas across different fields and seeing possibilities that other people may not see yet. I can also open more possibilities than I should keep active, administration drains me and unfinished follow-up can pile up around otherwise good work.
I am building a business and a life with more freedom, financial room, ownership and work that feels like mine. My Wingman knows that goal and uses it when we decide what deserves attention.
What Codex does as my Wingman
Before a meeting, I can ask it to pull together the history of the relationship, what we have discussed before, what is happening in the company and which questions matter now.
When I am considering an opportunity, it can find the relevant parts of my experience, examine the company, prepare my thinking and help me see where I could create value.
It helps me draft articles, prepare conversations, organise research, keep track of decisions and turn loose ideas into something I can review.
After something happens, it can update the plan and prepare the follow-through. If a person has replied, we work from the reply. If an idea is on hold, it should stop treating it as an active project. If I have already sent a message, it should not hand the same draft back to me three days later. That last part sounds obvious, but in practice it is one of the hardest parts to get right.
How we divide the work
I still take the important human conversations, and my Wingman handles as much of the work around those moments as possible: research, preparation, coordination, documentation and follow-up.
I use my judgment, intuition and creativity. I decide what I believe, what I want and what I am willing to put my name behind.
This division is useful because the work around a decision often takes much longer than the decision itself. A 45-minute conversation can require hours of preparation and create several new loose ends afterwards. I want to be present for the conversation without becoming the administrator of everything it creates.
Codex is particularly useful for this because it can work directly with my files and systems. It can read and edit documents, run scripts, build software, structure information and check whether something actually happened. With the right access and permissions, it can move from discussing the work to doing much of the work.
It is still a work in progress
My Wingman does not get everything right. Sometimes it gives too much weight to an old idea. Sometimes it misses a newer decision or brings me something that is technically finished but has not created a real result. Sometimes I have to tell it that a perfectly sensible suggestion simply does not feel like me.
Then we correct it, and the correction can become part of how we work next time. It can update the source material, change the plan and stop repeating the same misunderstanding in every new conversation.
I am building the system while using it. Some parts work remarkably well. Other parts still need a lot of work.
I simply want a Wingman that knows me, knows what we are trying to achieve and can help carry the work from an idea or conversation to something real.