There's a particular kind of friction that only designers and builders notice.
It's not catastrophic. It's not broken. It's just inefficient—and that's almost worse.
For me, it lived in one tiny moment:
Shift–Command–4.
I take a lot of screenshots on macOS. Research, UI references, client feedback, and design fragments—my screen is a sketchbook. Every capture lands on my Desktop and opens in Preview.
From there, the ritual begins:
- Rename.
- Save.
- Open Notion.
- Create a page.
- Title it.
- Upload image.
- Tag it.
It works. But multiply that ritual by 30 times a day, and you're not capturing ideas—you're being managed by a system that you think you're managing.
The Real Problem Wasn't Technical
It was workflow friction.
Preview is the app I live in most. Notion is where the thinking ends up. But there was no elegant bridge between them—at least not one that fit how I work.
I tried Automator. I tried Keyboard Maestro shortcuts. I found half-solutions that broke when the Notion API updated.
Nothing did exactly what I wanted:
- Capture
- Title
- Send directly to a specific database
- Tag it correctly
- Append the image block
- Close the loop
No manual upload. No extra clicks. No clutter.
So instead of duct-taping a workaround, I decided to design the workflow I actually wanted.
Enter AI as a Creative Partner
This is where things got interesting.
Rather than hunting through GitHub gists, I treated AI like a collaborator. Not a shortcut. Not a replacement for thinking. A collaborator that shortens the gap between problem and prototype.
I broke the problem into its smallest pieces:
- Capture image.
- Prompt for a clean page title.
- Create a Notion page inside my Notes database.
- Apply the correct "Type" property (Image).
- Upload the file via Notion's API.
- Append the image block.
- Done.
The first version worked—and then broke.
Then it worked.
Then threw heredoc errors.
Then unbound variable errors.
If you've debugged shell scripts at 11:47 PM, you know the feeling.
Built, Shipped, and What Comes Next
The current version does exactly what I wanted:
- I run the script.
- A clean macOS dialog prompts me for a page title.
- The page is created in Notion.
- The image uploads.
- The block is appended.
- The database is structured properly.
It's fast. It's clean. Far less friction.
The real output wasn't the script. It was this:
When something becomes easy, you do it more.
When you do it more, your system improves.
When your system improves, your thinking improves.
That's the real payoff.
Before this goes public, it needs one structural fix: the Notion API token is currently hardcoded, which is fine for a local machine and terrible for GitHub. The next version moves credentials into environment variables—a .envfile that stays out of version control and keeps the repo open-source safe.
The bigger goal is packaging: a proper README, a downloadable installer, and eventually a native macOS share sheet integration.
The dream is a workflow that starts and ends without touching a keyboard beyond the capture itself:
Shift–Command–4 → Capture → Click "Send to Notion" → Done.
Big Deal? Why This Matters
This wasn't about saving 30 seconds.
It was about refusing to accept the defaults and losing 15 minutes a day doing the steps over and over.
Too many people accept the friction between apps as inevitable.
But most friction exists simply because no one has customized the bridge.
AI doesn't replace that thinking—it accelerates the iteration.
It shortens the loop between idea and implementation.
But the vision still has to come from you.
What's Next
The cleaned version is on GitHub, complete with environment handling and installation instructions.
If you live in screenshots, research notes, or visual capture workflows, this might reduce real cognitive load.
