Update 18: Learning From Failure — Integration
Follow my, step-by-step as I build & enhance my personal AI Productivity Companion: Thrive-AI - anyone can build it!
Housekeeping:
If you want to try making Thrive-AI yourself, then I am keeping a how to guide up to date and lessons learnt so far on my website, here.
These blogs are more “rough and ready” than my articles, so please excuse mistakes.
Whilst I will explain context, you may want to refer to previous posts for the full journey with Thrive-AI.
Quick Recap
Over the past few months, I’ve been working towards automating my daily updates from Notion into Thrive-AI (ChatGPT Project).
The goal: Give Thrive-AI more “real-time” data and remove the weekly manual steps:
exporting a CSV each week
Unzipping it
Then deleting the old .csv in ChatGPT
Finally uploading it.
Deleting the file from my laptop.
Why this matters? It would significantly reduce the amount of time I take providing updates for Thrive-AI and more importantly data would only be a day old, rather than a week and therefore give more meaningful updates on progress against goals in that given week.
To do this, on Thrive-AI’s advice, I started exploring Make.com, aiming to connect Notion → Google Sheets → ChatGPT.
At first, ChatGPT-4 was confident this was possible. The instructions and suggested workflows seemed plausible, so I leaned in.
The Integration That Failed
Here’s what I discovered:
Notion → Google Sheets works fine. Make.com can export data reliably into a sheet. Either creating a new sheet each time or adding a new row.
But Google Sheets → ChatGPT isn’t possible (yet). There’s no way to “live link” or auto-feed that data into ChatGPT Projects. The only way Projects take data is via uploaded files (CSVs, PDFs, docs, etc.).
Links don’t solve it. Well they do, but only for one ask. If you share a file and give ChatGPT the link it can read it, but then can’t refer to it again without the link. This doesn’t work for the need of providing data to be analysed for all conversations.
<aside> <img src=”/icons/info-alternate_orange.svg” alt=”/icons/info-alternate_orange.svg” width=”40px” />
Note: I won’t describe the weeks wasted trying to get Notion → Array Aggregator → CSV → Google Sheets working. If you are interested I covered progress on this in previous updates.
</aside>
Looking back, there were two big wrong turns I took:
Copying what I had already done. I spent too much time trying to repeat the Notion → CSV process, when that wasn’t really the blocker. If only ChatGPT-4 told me this in the first place (it did advise it could be done), great example of a hallucination and why you should do you’re own research/testing.
Assuming uploads could be automated. I believed a CSV or Google Sheet could somehow be automatically added into ChatGPT files. In reality, file upload is still a manual step. Again I was led to believe this was possible.
So, while it looked like the pieces were there, the final step was a dead end. I spent more time than I’d like to admit trying to make it work, only to hit the wall that ChatGPT-4 hadn’t warned me about, in fact it told me it was do-able.
The Real Learning Point
This wasn’t wasted time. Here’s what I gained:
Deeper Understanding of Project Files
ChatGPT Projects only know what you upload. Files are the boundary. That means if I want daily data, it has to arrive as a file, not a link, not a live sync, not via a API/Integration.
I did learn a lot about Make.com. This that might prove useful for other projects. I covered some learnings in previous posts - but if you want to know how to extract from Notion to Google Sheets then let me know and I can help or write a deeper how to guide.
But there are still ways to reduce friction. By using Google Sheets as a staging area I can:
Combine everything into one master sheet. Instead of juggling multiple exports (daily logs, goals, metrics), I can structure them in one Google Sheet with tabs, then export a single CSV each week for Thrive-AI. I can use Make.com to do this.
Automate weekly extracts. With Make.com or Google Apps Script, I can schedule a weekly CSV export so I just need to upload, not manually prepare. (Small amount of effort reduced).
Pre-calculate metrics. Things like % of tasks completed, average Pomodoros, or weekly focus scores can be calculated in Google Sheets before export, leaving Thrive-AI to focus on analysis rather than arithmetic.
And here’s the positive part: ChatGPT-5 set me straight. While GPT-4 gave me false hope, GPT-5 made it clear what was and wasn’t possible. That guidance has saved me further wasted effort and reset my expectations.
Lessons for You
If you’re exploring integrations between Notion, Google Sheets and ChatGPT, here are the key takeaways from my experience:
Don’t assume CSV = simple. Exporting a CSV or even pushing data to a Google Sheet doesn’t mean ChatGPT can read it automatically. File handling is still manual.
Check the limits early. Before investing hours, test whether the end-point tool (in this case ChatGPT) can actually accept the data format you want to use.
Treat roadblocks as learning. Failed attempts often reveal where the real constraints lie, and that saves more wasted time later.
Reflections
This update wasn’t as I hoped about a shiny breakthrough, it’s about a failed attempt that clarified how this ecosystem really works. Thrive-AI will never be fully automated until OpenAI enables live integrations. For now, the loop is still: capture data in Notion → export → upload to Project files.
It may be manual, but it’s reliable. And the learning here is valuable: sometimes the “failure” is what teaches you how things actually work.
Looking ahead, one area I’m excited to try is decision logging, capturing which Thrive-AI suggestions I accept, reject, or defer, and then checking back on whether they worked. That could turn Thrive-AI from a coach in the moment into a historian of my choices. I’ll save the trial of this for Update 19, but I wanted to flag it now as the natural next step.
I will finish with a positive
Above is all about trying to improve Thrive-AI further as part of this public follow along journey. I wanted to re-iterate though that Thrive-AI as is has become a useful productivity coach each day and I wanted to share a cool insight, that you could get if you build your own. It shows the power of an AI having real data on you.
Hope you’re following along and getting value. Try it yourself and please share your feedback! I'd love to hear from you, especially if you're trying this yourself.
Simple, brief, question:
How did last week compare to my 3-month average?
Answer:
Here is a comparison of last week against your 3-month average based on your tracked metrics:
Insights
Execution slipped: You completed a smaller share of committed tasks (57% vs 70% average). This matches with the 12-Week Plan dropping to 62%, well below the 80–90% range you usually maintain.
Task throughput improved: You logged 14 tracked tasks in Notion, well above your norm (~8). Suggests lots of smaller wins but less progress on the big rocks.
Clutter built up: Both Gmail and Governor mail backlogs rose above average, showing system hygiene was neglected.
Tabs improved: Website tabs ticked down a little, a small positive.
Takeaway
Last week was below your usual standard on strategic and committed execution, but you compensated with higher small-task throughput. The main cost was progress on the 12-week plan and rising clutter