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Work & careerShould AI Do This on Its Own? Score It Before You Automate"Can't AI do this for me?" is a fair question to ask of any job you do every week. Most of us answer it with a mood. When you're tired on a Friday, the answer is yes to…Score the risk, then let four questions overrule your gut.5 min read Thinking for yourselfSay Please to AI. It's Not for the AI.At the front of the message box, before everything you need to say, sit six letters that spell please. After them comes the text to your landlord that you want AI to…Write the first line the way you'd say it to a person.3 min read Thinking for yourselfAI Can Fill Every Spare Minute. Leave Some Empty.The kettle is on, and by now it has reached the low roar it makes a minute before it boils. The mug is waiting on the side with the teabag in, the string hanging over…The empty minutes are where you find out what you think.3 min read Home & lifeIs ChatGPT Your Friend? Aristotle Had a TestIs it a bit sad that I talk to AI at night? The question tends to come after the phone goes down. You couldn't sleep and everyone you'd message was asleep, but the AI…Company at 2am is fine. Who will you message in the morning?3 min read Home & lifeAn AI Copy of Someone You've LostThere is a voicemail on your phone that you have never deleted, and it is under a minute long. You know where the pause comes, and the breath before your name. You know…Let AI help you remember. Don't let it take their place.4 min read Work & careerBefore You Let AI Cut a Step From How You Work, Ask This"Step four adds nothing. I'd cut it," the AI tells you. You asked AI to tidy up a task, maybe how you send invoices, how you pack for a trip, or how you put the…"I can't remember why" and "there is no reason" are different things.3 min read Thinking for yourselfWhen an AI Chat Feels Human, Ask This One Question"I can tell this one matters to you." Late in the evening AI said that. You hadn't managed to put the feeling into words yet, and for a second you forgot you were…The kind thing and the true thing sound exactly the same.3 min read Thinking for yourselfThe Painting Moved You. Then You Read the Label.Your thumb stops scrolling on a field of yellow under a low grey sky, where a small figure walks away at the far edge. Something in the picture hits you in the chest…Start with what you lived through. Let AI interview you before it makes anything.3 min read Thinking for yourselfWhat One AI Question Costs the Planet, and Where Yours FitsThe average text prompt to Google's Gemini apps uses about five drops of water. That's Google's own figure, and it sits awkwardly next to a thought you may have had…One toilet flush uses more water than fifteen thousand short AI questions.3 min read Thinking for yourselfShould AI Pay the Writers It Learned From?Anthropic, the company that makes Claude, paid $1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by authors. Settling means agreeing to pay to end the case. The settlement…Learning from books is fair. The writers behind these tools still deserve a say and a share.3 min read How AI worksWhat Your AI Doesn't Know Yet, and When to Ask It to SearchEvery AI model stops learning on a fixed date. (A model is the AI system behind the chat, such as the one inside ChatGPT or Claude.) Up to that day, the model reads an…Could the answer have changed since last year? Then start with "search the web".3 min read Getting startedYour First Week With AI, One Small Job a DayWhat am I meant to do with AI? You've asked yourself that twice now since someone at work told you to try it. You made an account, typed "hello", got a cheerful…The day AI is confidently wrong is the most useful day of your first week.3 min read Getting startedWhy You Get Average Answers"Help me get more customers." Type that and you get page one of Google, which is ten polite, sensible tips that could have been written for anyone. Plenty of people…"Before you start, ask me the three questions that would most change your answer."3 min read Getting startedLet AI Interview You. Asking Beats Telling.Stop writing instructions for AI. For anything that matters, I'd get AI to interview you instead. You can write three careful lines about the plan, the trip or the…Stop writing the brief. Ask AI to question you, one question at a time.4 min read Getting startedProject or Skill? The Two Words That Stop You Repeating YourselfA Project and a Skill sound like two names for the same thing, because both are somewhere to save instructions for the AI. But they do different jobs. A Project is a…Is it about where you are, or what you're doing? That's the whole choice.5 min read Thinking for yourselfFour 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…Would you wince to say the AI did it? Then that task is yours to keep.4 min read Thinking for yourselfHow Do You Know? The One Question to Ask Every AI AnswerA confident answer feels like a checked one, but confidence tells you nothing. Did the AI look the answer up, or did it piece the answer together from scraps? AI sounds…Under any answer that matters, ask three words. How do you know?4 min read Getting startedBefore You Download Anyone's AI TemplatesI think most AI template packs are a waste of the download. A template pack is a bundle of ready-made prompts, the instructions you type into AI. The only packs worth…Before you download a template, ask who made it and whether they still use it.3 min read Getting startedBefore You Pay for an Upgrade, Check What You Already OwnOnce you move credit card points into an airline's points scheme, you usually can't move them back. Remember that at check-in, when you're half-packed and the airline…Points moved into an airline scheme rarely come back, so decide before you transfer.3 min read Getting startedOne Chat, One JobThere's a chat at the top of your sidebar called "stuff", and it has been open since March. It began as a question about a spreadsheet. Then it took in the email to the…If one title can't cover everything in a chat, it should be two chats.4 min read Getting startedStop Re-Explaining Yourself With One Folder Your AI Always ReadsMonday morning, a new chat, and the cursor blinks in an empty box. You paste the same paragraph again, about who you are and what you sell. It says you can't stand…A Project with forty documents in it is a cupboard, not a colleague.4 min read How AI worksHow to Tell When a Long Chat Has Stopped ListeningThis chat has been open since before lunch, and the scroll bar has shrunk to a sliver. Somewhere around turn 60 (your 60th message and its reply), you ask for the final…Give a long chat one small rule. When AI stops following it, the chat has started to drift.3 min read How AI worksWhat a Context Window Is, and Why It's the Thing That BitesPicture a desk with no drawers. The desk is wide and flat, and it holds everything the AI can see right now. That means your messages, its replies, any files you've…When a chat seems to go stupid, it has usually run out of room.4 min read How AI worksWhy AI Makes Things Up (And Sounds So Sure While It Does)How can AI recommend a book that doesn't exist, and not even blink? There was a title, an author, a year and a one-line summary of the argument. You went to order the…Find the one claim the answer rests on and check it yourself before you trust the rest.5 min read How AI worksWhy the Same Question Gets a Different AnswerOpen a new chat and ask your last important question again, word for word. You may get a different answer. Earlier you asked whether you could claim an expense, and the…A different answer doesn't mean the AI is broken. It's your cue to check.3 min read Writing & your voiceHow to Make AI Write Like You, Not Like AIA better prompt won't make AI sound like you. (A prompt is simply what you type to the AI.) Buy a prompt pack, and the drafts still arrive in a stranger's voice. You…The AI writes like everyone because it has never read you.4 min read Writing & your voiceIt Reads Fine. That's the Problem.I'd rather read one rough sentence that's true than a clean page that says nothing. "Fine" is the worst thing a draft can be, and AI can produce fine all day. Maybe you…Score the draft against six markers, then fill the gaps from your own head.4 min read Writing & your voiceKeep the First DraftThink of a photocopy of a photocopy, each copy made from the last one, laid face down on the glass. By the tenth copy, the letters have thickened and grey has crept in…Keep your first draft. It's the only copy that remembers what you meant.3 min read Writing & your voiceMark Your Own Work FirstRead your draft back once, with the AI closed, before you ask AI anything. Most people work the other way round. They finish, paste the draft in, and ask what's wrong…Write the three weakest things down by hand before you ask the AI for its list.3 min read Writing & your voiceShould You Say You Used AI?"Did you write this, or did the robot?" A colleague says it half-joking, your report in hand, a moment after calling it good. You take a second, and the whole question…Would they feel misled if they found out later?4 min read Writing & your voiceThe Email You've Rewritten Four Times and Still Haven't SentDraft four of the email to the landlord says "I appreciate you're busy" twice. Draft three called the damp a disgrace. The tab has been open since Tuesday. Every…Decide what you want from the email before you ask for a single draft.4 min read Writing & your voiceThe Speech Only You Can Give, for Weddings, Eulogies and ToastsThe document is called speech, and it holds two lines you've written and deleted four times tonight at the kitchen table. The cursor goes on blinking after the second…Every story in the speech happened, and you were there.5 min read Writing & your voiceThree Things AI Can Do to Your EmailAlexandra Samuel counts three ways to write with AI. She writes about working with technology for Harvard Business Review and the Wall Street Journal. The three-way…Three hard sentences from the AI make half an email that isn't yours.3 min read Work & careerA Finished Report and No Idea HowYou come back from the kitchen with a coffee, and the report on the three suppliers is finished. It runs to twelve pages, with tables comparing the suppliers, a…If you can't write the verdict in your own words, you haven't finished.3 min read Work & careerBuild the Small Tool You Keep Wishing ExistedI'd ignore every post telling you to build an AI side hustle. Build the small tool you'd use yourself, and decide later, once you have something that works, whether…Build the tool you'd use on Tuesday, and test it with answers you already know.4 min read Work & careerFix Your CV With AI Without It Becoming AI's CVMost people think the AI's job is rewriting their CV. Give AI that job and it turns you into a "results-driven professional with a proven track record", which is the…Nothing goes on the CV that you couldn't talk about for two minutes.3 min read Work & careerLet AI Answer Your DMs. Keep the Conversations That Matter."hi how much is it" Sent at 2am, under the post that took off. Your DMs (direct messages) and comments are arriving faster than you can answer, and half of them ask the…AI answers "how much is it?". You answer the person who asked.4 min read Work & careerPlan Your Week in Ten Minutes Without Abandoning It by TuesdayIt's Tuesday, ten to four, and the meeting that should have finished at two has only now let you go. The school has rung about a temperature, and your boss wants the…Leave a quarter of every day empty. That's how a plan survives past Tuesday.3 min read Work & careerPrepare for an Interview Without Sounding PreparedTwo tabs are open, with your CV in one and their website in the other. You've read the About page twice and you know what the company does. But you don't know what…Say every answer out loud the night before, not for the first time in the room.4 min read Work & careerThe First Thing to Let AI Do While You're Not WatchingMost people assume the first job for a scheduled AI should be a chore, such as archiving the newsletters. I'd start with a check. The first thing AI does while you're…Anything AI does while you sleep should report back and change nothing.4 min read Work & careerYou Don't Need More AI Tools. You Need One You've Finished.Look in your bookmarks bar, and there's a folder of AI tools you tried once. There's the meeting-notes one, and near it the one that was going to organise your…A tool you've tried isn't a tool you use.3 min read Work & careerYour Job Won't Vanish. Three of Its Tasks Will.I'd stop asking whether AI will take your job, and ask which of your tasks AI will take instead. That question has an answer you can find before Friday. On the train…Mark the tasks you'd fight to keep. Let the ones that are shifting go on purpose.3 min read Money & adminMoney You've Forgotten About, and How to Find It in an EveningWhatever happened to the savings account from your first job, or the pension from the place you worked for eight months? Probably nothing, because money doesn't vanish…Money doesn't vanish when you forget it. It waits, free to find, until you ask.3 min read Money & adminSell the Stuff You Never Use, Without Lying About ItThere's a coat hanging off the handlebars of the exercise bike, and the coat has been there since February. You'd sell the bike, the old phone in the drawer, the pram…Show the scratch in the photo, and nobody ends up arguing in your hallway.3 min read Money & adminThe Documents You Signed and Never ReadFind the last thing you signed without reading it, and download the PDF. If you can't think of one, try the phone contract, the tenancy, the gym or the car finance. Or…Put every date AI finds in your calendar. That's what you came for.4 min read Money & adminThe Money You're Owed, and the Message You Keep Not Sending"I'll send it tonight." Your friend said it, and didn't. Add the refund a company promised in March and the deposit on the flat you left in the spring. Now you're owed…AI remembers what you were promised. You decide who gets the message.4 min read Money & adminThe Two-Minute Check Before You Press BuyThe basket is full and it's gone eleven. Under the total sits a little box that says "discount code", and you've already decided to buy. What you want now is a reason…Before you hunt for a discount code, ask a better question. Do I need this at all?3 min read Home & lifeBefore and After the Doctor's Appointment, Not Instead of ItMy rule for AI and health is short. AI can get you ready for the appointment and help you read the letter afterwards, but AI doesn't get to tell you what's wrong with…Take five questions on paper the night before, and leave the diagnosing to your doctor.4 min read Home & lifeGive It Your Own Last 30 DaysOpen your calendar, scroll back to this day last month, and then come forward to today. Every meeting you moved is there in order, and so is every evening you blocked…Is it a real pattern, or two quiet Tuesdays in a row?4 min read Home & lifeHow Rare Is Your Name? (And How to Tell a Guess From a Fact)The best lesson I know in how AI works costs five minutes and your own name. Somewhere, a stranger may be living a whole life under your name. Maybe there are thousands…A guess dressed up as a fact is still a guess. Ask where the number came from.3 min read Home & lifeLet AI Sort the Six Thousand ScreenshotsIMG_4823.jpg is a whiteboard, photographed at a slant, from a meeting you can't place. It's one of forty whiteboards in your Downloads folder, sitting alongside a tax…Write the labels on the boxes before the AI packs a single file.3 min read Home & lifePhotograph the Fridge, Get DinnerHalf a bag of spinach has gone soft against the plastic, and there are four eggs in a box made for six. Some chicken needs eating tonight or never. A jar has an inch of…The only skill is telling AI what the photo can't show.3 min read Home & lifeRedesign Your Room With AI, Then Measure Before You Buy AnythingThe big light is on, and the sofa sits opposite the telly, where it has sat for four years. The walls have gone from fresh to tired without you noticing when. You know…Most rooms are fixed by a sofa turned round and one good lamp.4 min read Home & lifeRestoring the Photo in the Box. What AI Repairs, and What It Invents.Two people sit on a front step, squinting at whoever held the camera. The print has faded to the colour of weak tea. A crease runs down the middle, missing her face by…Keep the original, and take the coloured copy to whoever remembers.3 min read Home & lifeThe List in Your Head Weighs More Than the Jobs on ItMost of what people call feeling overwhelmed is really a storage problem. You're holding forty small jobs in your head at once, and none of them is hard, and none of…Sort the list by minutes, start at the top, and see what was hiding underneath.4 min read Home & lifeWhat Your Surname Means, and How to Tell a Story From a Record"We came over with the Huguenots." Or the name was changed at the docks, or there's a castle somewhere. Someone's grandad said so, and that was that. The story has gone…The dull answer is usually the true one. A smith, or someone who lived by a brook.3 min read Home & lifeWhere Should You Really Live? A Ten-Minute Way to Find OutAlmost nobody chose the city they live in. You were born there, or a job moved you, or you followed someone, or the rent was cheap one year and then a decade went by…The choice gets made on a pavement somewhere new, by you.4 min read Learning & familyBuild Your Family Tree With AI (and Your Mum in the Room)You're at the kitchen table, and your nan's tea is going cold. She is telling you her grandmother's maiden name and the village the family came from, and nobody has…AI keeps the names in order. You keep the afternoon your nan spent saying them.4 min read Learning & familyCan You Explain It With the Tab Closed?Look away from the screen and explain the last thing an AI taught you, out loud. Say what the idea is and give one example. What comes out may look like an explanation…Close the tab and explain it. Every gap you hit is something you didn't learn.3 min read Learning & familyHelping With Homework Without Doing ItSomehow the pencil has crossed the kitchen table and is in your hand, and on the page are simultaneous equations. You did these at school, and now you can't remember a…Two minutes in the other room first, so you can be the one who helps.4 min read Learning & familyLearn a Language With AI, Then Go and Talk to a PersonA language app can give you a 200-day streak without once making you hold a conversation. The app taught you that the owl drinks milk, but it didn't teach you what to…AI plays the waiter. You go and order the coffee.4 min read Learning & familyStudy With AI Without Letting It Do the LearningThe summary of chapter six fills the screen in tidy bullets, cleaner than anything you'd write. Somewhere under your elbow are your own notes, two pages of biro…The AI never produces the thing you're supposed to be able to produce.5 min read Privacy & safetyBefore You Connect Your AI to Your Email, Calendar or Files"Should I let it into my email, or is that asking for trouble?" The answer depends less on the AI and more on what you let it do once it's in. On its own, an AI knows…Hand over one key first. Let AI only look for a week before it acts.4 min read Privacy & safetyBefore You Let AI Click, Send or Buy on Your BehalfI'm happy to let AI do the clicking, but any button that can't be undone, I press myself. For a couple of years, the worst AI could do was give you a bad answer. Now AI…AI fills in the form. You press pay.4 min read Privacy & safetyFive Minutes in the Settings. What Your AI Keeps, and What You Can Switch Off.Open your AI tool's settings, find the section about privacy or data, and keep it open beside this page. Every AI tool keeps some of what you type. That includes the…If you'd hesitate to say it in an open-plan office, put it in a temporary chat.3 min read Privacy & safetyThe Phone Call That Sounds Exactly Like Your DaughterAt ten past eleven the phone lights up, and it's your daughter, crying. She's in trouble, she needs money and she needs it tonight. The voice is hers, right down to the…Agree a family word nobody has ever posted, and ring back on a number you already had.4 min read Privacy & safetyWhat "Training on Your Data" Means, in Plain EnglishLeaving the "improve the model" switch on doesn't mean AI will one day recite your business plan to a stranger. That's the fear most people have about this setting, and…Turning training off won't make the AI any worse at helping you.4 min read Privacy & safetyWhat Does Your AI Think It Knows About You?"What does it think it knows about me?" If you've had memory switched on for a while, there's an answer, and it's longer than you'd guess. Memory is the feature that…What does your AI think it knows about you? Ask it for the evidence.4 min read Privacy & safetyYour Address Is on a Website You've Never Heard OfIt takes a stranger about forty seconds to find your address. Type your name and your town into a search engine like Google. For most people, the first page of results…Most companies have to answer a UK erasure request within a month.4 min read Privacy & safetyYour Chats Are Yours. Download Them Once a Year.If you use AI most days, download your chat history once a year. I'd do it in the first week of January, next to backing up the photos. In there you'd find the cover…Download your chat history once a year, next to backing up the photos.3 min read Thinking for yourselfBefore You Ask AI Anything That MattersAll week you've turned one question over, which is whether to take this job, and tonight you wrote a prompt about it. A prompt is the message you type to tell AI what…A well-written prompt can't save the wrong question.3 min read Thinking for yourselfFive Questions Before You Open the ChatbotLeave the chat tab alone, just for one minute. Your hands got there before the rest of you did, bringing a task or a vague feeling that this would go quicker with help…What would it cost if AI got this wrong? The higher the cost, the more checking you do.4 min read Thinking for yourselfHow to Read an AI Research Report Without Being Fooled by ItA small link sits after nearly every claim, and there are forty of them across twelve pages. They crowd the comparison table and trail after the recommendation. Each…Click the three links the whole report rests on before you read its verdict.4 min read Thinking for yourselfHow to Stop Your AI Agreeing With You"This is a brilliant idea, and here are three ways to make it even stronger." You described the plan, or the message you were about to send, and the answer came back…AI argues the other side. You make the call.3 min read Thinking for yourselfIs It Cheating? Using AI at Work, at School, and in Your Own WritingDid I do this? The report took an hour instead of a day, and you checked it. The numbers are right and the recommendation is yours. And still, with the cursor resting…What was the work for, and did using AI serve that or get round it?5 min read Thinking for yourselfIt Didn't Take Your Choice. It Shrank the Menu.People worry that AI will start making their choices for them, but mostly AI does something quieter. It lets you choose, but from a list AI wrote. Offered three…AI offers three choices. You can always write a fourth.3 min read Thinking for yourselfMake a List of What You Refuse to AutomateA birthday card lies open on the kitchen table, blank inside, with the pen beside it and its cap off. On your phone are three lines the AI wrote for the card. They're…Hand a task over and your attention goes with it. That attention was doing useful work.4 min read Thinking for yourselfNobody Decided You'd Stop Writing Your Own EmailsThe biggest decisions about AI in your working life are the ones nobody made, and your emails are a good example. There was no meeting, and nobody sat you down and said…Would I have chosen this? Ask that of every setting you never picked.3 min read Thinking for yourselfOne Task a Day With the AI OffA treadmill is a rubber belt looped over two rollers, a motor, and a screen counting the distance you aren't travelling. Nobody has to walk anywhere now, because…Hard thinking is how you stay sharp. Keep one task a day for it.3 min read Thinking for yourselfSay What You Think Before You AskI think the first opinion you read on a decision becomes the frame, and every later opinion gets hung on that first one, your own opinion included. When the decision…Write down what you think before you read what AI thinks.3 min read Thinking for yourselfUsing AI a Little Bit for Everything Is the Worst Way to Use ItA 2026 study split 912 students into groups by how they used AI. Which group do you think did worst? The ones who dabbled, using AI a little bit for everything. They…Give AI the whole job. You do the judging, with the hour it saved you.5 min read