LESSON 4 OF 4
Pick a default, then name the exceptions
BY THE END OF THIS LESSON
Stop re-deciding, by settling on one tool and three rules for leaving it.
Re-deciding every time is its own cost
If every task starts with choosing a tool, you pay a small tax before any work happens, and you never build fluency in any of them.
Depth in one tool beats shallow familiarity with four. The person who knows where everything is in one will out-work the person still comparing.
Choose the default for the ordinary case
Your default should be the one that handles the work you do most, not the one that handles your hardest task best. Hard tasks are rare by definition, and you can leave the default for those.
If most of your work is writing and thinking with material you supply, choose on instruction-following and how much it will take at once. If most of it is questions about the world, choose on searching and citing.
Write the exceptions down
Three rules is enough, and they should be specific enough to recognise mid-task: "if it needs a source I can click, go elsewhere", "if it is longer than a chapter, go elsewhere", "if it touches the accounts, do not use AI at all".
An exception you cannot recognise while working is not an exception, it is a hope.
WORKED EXAMPLE
NO DEFAULT
I have four tools open and pick whichever I feel like, then wonder if I should have used another one.
A DEFAULT AND THREE EXCEPTIONS
Default: one tool, for everything. Exceptions: anything needing a clickable source, anything longer than it will take in one go, and anything touching the accounts — which does not go to AI at all.
The default removes a decision from every task, and the exceptions are specific enough to notice while working. Both parts are needed: a default with no exceptions eventually gets used for something it should not be.
YOUR TURN
Settle your default and write your three exceptions.
RUN THIS
Help me settle on one default AI tool and three rules for when to leave it. Here is the work I do most: [describe it]. Here are the tools I have: [list them]. Choose the default based on my ordinary work rather than my hardest task. Then write three exceptions specific enough that I would recognise one while I am mid-task.
What a good result looks like
Each exception should name something you could notice in the moment — a source, a length, a subject. "When it is important" is not recognisable and will never fire.
KNOWLEDGE CHECK
Answer all 3 correctly to complete this lesson.
1. What should the default be chosen for?
2. What makes an exception useful?
3. Why does a default need exceptions at all?
REMEMBER THIS
One default for the ordinary work, three exceptions you would recognise mid-task.