Finish one real task today · Lesson 10

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The thing that has been waiting

First find it. Do not sit and try to think of a good task. Thinking of one is the hard part and it is not the part worth practicing. Look instead.

From here this lesson uses your own work. Before you paste anything in, take out full names, home addresses, phone numbers, account or reference numbers, and anything about a person's health or money. Initials, the customer, and the job last Tuesday all work perfectly well. Pick something ordinary. Not legal, medical or money-critical. Those are real jobs, but they are not today's practice run.

I looked at one of these rather than trying to remember: my unanswered messages, my notes app, my to-do list, or the pile of paper by the kettle
I picked one short piece of writing, under a page, that I already know the answer to. If it still needs a decision I have not made, I picked something else. Today is for writing it, not deciding it
If nothing jumped out within thirty seconds, I took the oldest message where I already know what I want to say and just have not said it. There is always one of those
I have my six rules from lesson 9 where I can see them
I said out loud how long this has been waiting. Days or weeks. I said the actual number
I have noted the time right now, so I can tell afterwards how long this took

Lesson 10 · Making it yours

By the end you can

Finish one piece of writing you had been putting off
Check your own work against facts only you can vouch for
Set one trigger so the next use starts without a decision

What you need

The tool you picked in lesson 8, and one real piece of your own work. The first lesson that asks for something real.

Fundamentals of AI

Say it all once, properly

Now give it everything in one go: the mess in your head, and the four things that turn a vague request into a usable one. The frame below has a slot for each. Fill in the brackets, delete the bracket marks, and send it.

Guess first

Before you send it: how long do you think it will take to get this finished and out?

Under five minutesFive to fifteen minutesLonger than thatNo idea

Nobody else sees this and nothing here is marked. Being wrong here is worth more than being right.

The frame. Keep this one.

I need to write [what it is, for example: a reply to a customer, a job sheet, a short advert, a note to my team]. Here is everything I know. It is messy and that is fine: [Type or paste the raw details. What happened, when, what was agreed, what went wrong, and anything you would say out loud if you were explaining this to someone standing next to you.] Who will read it: [who] What I want them to do after they read it: [the one thing] How long: [for example: under 100 words] What form: [for example: an email, a text message, a short list] Write it in plain, ordinary language, the way I would say it. Do not add any fact, name, date, price or detail that I have not given you. If something important is missing, ask me for it instead of filling it in yourself.

If it comes back with a question instead of an answer, that is the frame working, not failing. Answer the question and carry on.

Make it yours, then use it

From memory

Lesson 4

You are about to use all three. Read it once, and not to decide whether it is good. Read it to find what is not true. Then make it sound like you. Then get it out of the box. If you are still fiddling after two rounds, stop and send it. A good-enough thing that is sent beats a perfect thing that is not, and this one has been waiting long enough.

Paste what you got, then check it against these four

Check your own work0/4

Every fact, name, date, number and price in it is one I gave it. There is nothing here I could not vouch for if somebody asked me tomorrow. That is the One-Thing Check, run on my own work for the first time
It asks the reader to do the one thing I wanted, and it is easy to spot
I am willing to put my name on it. If I am not, that is a change to ask for, not a reason to start over
It does not break any of my six rules. If one of the six applies here, I have done what it says

Three changes, then stop

Three changes, and nothing else. Cut: [what to take out] Change: [what to make different] Correct: [what is wrong, and what it should say instead] Leave everything else exactly as it is, including the parts I have already corrected.

If this is going to a customer or to your boss, read it out loud once before you send it. Out loud catches things that reading it in your head does not. Then send it.

It is sent, saved, or pasted where it needed to go. It is not sitting in a draft
The thing I picked in step one is off my list
I know three numbers now: how long it was waiting, how long I guessed it would take, and how long it actually took

Look at those three numbers together. Your guess may have been close, or you may have beaten it. Either way the number that matters is the one you started with: how long it had been waiting. The gap between that and the rest is not really about how fast the tool is. The job was never twenty minutes of work. It was twenty minutes of work sitting behind one minute of starting, and starting was the bit you kept not doing. That is what this is for. Not the hard jobs. The stuck ones.

So it happens again without you deciding to

If starting is the expensive part, the fix is not to try harder. It is to not have to decide. Two small things and you are done.

I scrolled back to step 2, copied that whole frame, and pasted it into a note on my phone or a file on my desktop. Somewhere I already look. That is my saved prompt, and it works for any short piece of writing
I picked a moment that already happens in my week, and it is not a time on a clock. Something like: when I lock up on a Friday. When I sit down after the school run. When I finish the last job of the day
I wrote this on the same note, with my own two blanks filled in: when [that moment] happens, I will open the tool I picked in lesson 8 for writing, and paste my saved prompt
I stopped at one. I have not made a second one

One trigger, not three. Pick the moment that comes round soonest and leave the rest alone. Do not add what you will write or how long you will spend. The moment and the paste. That is the whole plan.

That is the free course finished, and you are holding the proof. One real thing, done, that was not done this morning.

Where that leaves you

One last honest thing. The check that kept you safe today was simple, because you could vouch for every fact yourself. You wrote it, you knew the job, you knew the customer. That check stops working the moment the writing is about your trade rather than about you. An electrician can vouch for every word of an AI-written method statement and still be wrong about the regulations. You would not feel it go wrong. It feels exactly like getting it right. Knowing when you can trust it about your own trade is the next skill, and it is a different one.

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