The Day Intuition Became Structure: A Story About AI, Tools, and Creators.

At first, I only used it to learn how to operate the software.
When I started using Notion, I just couldn't grasp the concept of databases. Views, relations, rollups—the terms were all there, but I couldn't intuitively understand what they were doing. That's when I turned to Notion AI.

When I tried it, it was surprisingly accurate. It understood the context of Notion and answered accordingly. If I asked, "What does this mean?", it would explain based on the structure of the page I currently had open. There is no doubt that I was able to master Notion databases in a short period of time thanks to Notion AI.

Notion AI was the teacher that taught me the convenience of having an "AI by my side."
However, there is the reality of Notion AI's short free trial period. I felt it wasn't quite right to keep paying the same cost after I had already mastered it. That's when I noticed the combination of Edge and Copilot.

From teacher to neighbor

I open Notion in Edge and place Copilot in the side panel. When I switched to this style, it fit naturally in a way that felt mysterious. I had inherited the sense of an "AI by my side" that Notion AI had taught me, but in a different form.
I had previously installed an AI extension in VSCode to have it review my code. It was the same feeling as having an AI resident within my work environment. Even if the tools change, the essence of how to use them remains the same.

Writing manga storyboards in YAML

As the style became established, the usage moved to the next stage.
I developed a desire to create a framework for manga storyboards and scenarios. I started testing by writing YAML and importing it into Notion databases. It was a process of "organizing materials," where I managed character and scene attributes as data, and "creating blueprints," where I defined the structure of an episode as a template.

I proceeded with both of these simultaneously.
One day, after continuing this work for a while, I suddenly realized something.

My intuition had become structure.
The framework wasn't a constraint forced upon me from the outside; it had become a mirror reflecting my own thinking. The feeling of "I want to move the story this way" fell directly into the shape of YAML. It was the sensation of things that existed before verbalization becoming fixed as data.

Scenarios as state machines

When I grasped that sensation, I could see the next phase.
I want to design a system that can generate long sequels. If I can track where characters are and what they are carrying as data, the story won't have contradictions even if it gets long. It is a state machine design for scenarios that manages the state of the world, characters, and foreshadowing.
The moment I understood this, another door opened.
I discovered that I could create multiple repositories on GitHub and proceed with project designs in completely different fields at the same time. Managing parallel worlds in a scenario and managing versions of code were isomorphic in structure. The problem of "managing a project that has state" takes the same form in every field.

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As you use tools, you begin to see the patterns

Looking back, I feel that Notion AI taught me something much bigger than just how to use databases.
Discovering the very structure of thought through tools—the universal patterns that emerge in that process can be reused across fields. In martial arts, this is close to a "kata" (form). A form learned with the body can be applied in completely different situations.

I think this story will resonate with manga artists, musicians, writers, and app developers alike. Even if the tools we use are different, the "moment when intuition becomes structure" exists somewhere. Once you grasp that moment, the way you see the world changes a little.
I want to express my gratitude to Notion AI. It fulfilled its role as a teacher perfectly.

#ToolPhilosophy #Notion #AIToolUsage #MangaProduction
#CreatorWorkMethods #ScenarioWriting