Tips

One problem, one move, one result.

The rule for this page is that every tip has to be something you could do before lunch. If it needs a project plan it belongs in the blog instead.

Working with AI Draft

The problem: You save forty podcasts, three newsletters and a folder of tabs, and you get through almost none of it. The queue becomes guilt.
The move: Write down once, in plain words, what you actually care about and who you are learning for. Turn that into a saved instruction, then run every source through it instead of reading everything. Ask for the two things that would change what you do, and what to ignore.
The result: A forty minute episode becomes two lines. You keep the lines and drop the queue. The filter also gets better every time you tell it what it got wrong.

Automation Draft

The problem: The first automation most people build is the one that demos well. It gets shown once and then nobody depends on it, so it quietly rots.
The move: Look at what you did by hand at least three times this week. Build that one. It is usually unglamorous, moving something from one place to another, or turning a message into a record.
The result: Something you use every day, which means you fix it when it breaks, which means it is still alive in three months. That is the difference between an automation and a demo.

Adoption Draft

The problem: You build something good, announce it to the whole team, and two weeks later nobody has touched it. Everyone is busy, and a new tool is a cost before it is a saving.
The move: Find the one person whose week is genuinely worse because of this problem. Build it with them, in front of them. Do not announce anything until they are using it without you.
The result: They tell the others, and that is worth more than any rollout email. People adopt things their colleagues already survived, not things management introduced.

More coming

New tips land here as I find them.