Four Boxes for Any Task. Hand Over, Share, Get Help or Keep.

Pick the next task on your list and answer the question stuck to it. Is this one I hand over to AI?

Every task arrives with that second question now. Write the report, or let AI write it? Reply to the client, or let AI draft the reply? Plan the trip or fix the spreadsheet, and each time comes the half-second of wondering.

Most people answer it with a mood. If they're tired, they hand it over, and if they feel guilty, they do it by hand.

Neither is a decision.

For that half-second, two researchers, Fendi Tsim and Alina Gutoreva, have published a sorting tool they call SCAN. Their paper is "SCAN: A Decision-Making Framework for Effective Task Allocation with Generative AI" (arXiv, June 2026). Sofia Pires teaches the method in her workshop "How to use AI without losing your brain".

The four zones are theirs, and the paper bases them on theories of how people learn. The plain names and the sorting questions below are my simpler version. I call them four boxes, because that's what they are, and once you've got the boxes, you stop needing the mood.

The four boxes

SCAN stands for Substitute, Complement, Aid, Non-negotiable, and here they are in plain words.

• Hand over (Substitute) means the AI does the task and you check the result, as in "Sort these receipts by month."
• Share (Complement) means you do part, the AI does part, and both parts matter, as in "You draft and I decide. I write and you point out what's weak."
• Get help (Aid) means you do the task, and the AI helps you do it better, as in "Quiz me. Argue with me. What am I missing?"
• Keep (Non-negotiable) means you do the task with AI off, because doing it is the point. That might be the eulogy, or the thing you're still learning.

The first three are about getting things done well and fast, while the fourth is about you. Into the fourth box go the tasks where handing over costs you something the finished work never shows, like a skill or a relationship.

Sometimes what you lose is the right to say "I did that". To sort a task, I ask three questions, in this order.

1. Does doing this make me better at something I want to be better at? If yes, the task is Keep or Get help, never Hand over. The report that's teaching you to think about the business stays with you, but the one you've written forty times doesn't.
2. What happens if the AI gets it wrong and I don't notice? If the answer is that someone gets hurt, money is lost, or I've put my name to a lie, the task is Share at most. AI can draft, and you decide. When the worst case is re-sorting the receipts, Hand over.
3. Would I be embarrassed to say the AI did it? This one isn't about rules. It's about what the task is for, as with the thank-you note or the apology. If the honest answer makes you wince, the task is Keep.

Most tasks land in Share, and that's where the good work is. The boxes exist so that Hand over doesn't quietly eat the other three.

A week, sorted

Take an ordinary office week, though yours will differ. Sorting this one took five minutes, and the half-second now has an answer.

Task	Box	Why
Tidy the meeting notes into actions	Hand over	Nothing to learn, easy to check
Reply to the client who's unhappy	Share	AI drafts three versions. You pick one and rewrite the last line
The quarterly report	Share	AI builds the table. The recommendation is yours
Learning the new system at work	Get help	AI quizzes you. You're the one who has to know the system on Monday
Feedback for the person you manage	Keep	They'd know, and the point is that you noticed
Your CV for a job you want	Share	AI finds the gaps and interviews you. The words stay yours (that page)
The message to your dad	Keep	Obviously
Working out whether to take the job	Get help	AI argues the other side. You decide (that page)

Do yours and write it down. Some rows will refuse to sit still, because "write the report" is several tasks wearing one name, with gathering, structuring and deciding inside it.

Sort the parts, not the label.

Rows move over time too, as the report that was Keep while you were learning the business becomes Share once you know the business. The sorting you handed over comes back to Keep the day AI starts getting it wrong, so re-sort whenever something feels off.

Most of the drift goes one way, and that's the risk the authors are pointing at. Hand over is easy and feels productive, so tasks slide into it without anyone deciding.

A year later the Keep box is empty, and you can't remember when you last wrote a paragraph from nothing.

Aren't some things worth losing? Of course, and nobody mourns long division. If a task sits in Keep out of habit, and not because it makes you better, move it. The sorting is a judgement, which means the sorting is yours, and it can be wrong. The framework gives you somewhere to stand while you make that call.

Fill the fourth box on purpose, and defend it, because Keep is the only box nobody else can fill for you. Read your list again in six months.

The message to your dad, in the Keep column.