01 The AI starts every conversation without knowing anything about your work

When you open a new conversation, on the other side there’s nobody who knows your school, your team, or last week’s agreement. There’s a system that reads what you wrote in that box and nothing else. Anything you don’t tell it, it fills in using the average of what it has already seen in millions of texts — and the average is always generic.

This set of information you provide along with the request has a name: it’s the context. It’s not decoration for the request. It’s the raw material for the work.

A teacher asks “make a summary of yesterday’s class” and receives a text about the topic in general, usable for any class in the country. They didn’t paste their own lesson plan, they didn’t say the class is seventh grade, and they didn’t warn that the summary is for those who were absent. None of that was in the box — so none of it showed up in the answer.

02 Material, input, and definition of done — what the complete request needs to include

When someone leaves a car at a shop, they don’t just say “take a look.” The work order records what the owner heard, what they want resolved, and when they need the car back. That’s what lets you work without interrupting the owner every time a question comes up. A work request for an AI carries the same three pieces of information.

The input is what she needs to read: the original text, the numbers, the example of how you want it. The output is the form of the response: how many lines, what tone, and who will read it. The definition of done is what must necessarily appear for you to accept the result.

A manager needed to turn a 30-page safety standard into the schedule for the team’s mandatory training. Instead of asking “build a schedule for this,” she pasted in the standard, said “a table with four columns: topic, time needed, audience, and month,” and ended with “it’s only done if it covers the five topics required by the standard.”

03 You decide what a good result looks like

Of the three parts, the one almost everyone forgets is the third. We remember input and format because they’re visible. The definition of done stays in our head — and what stays only in our head doesn’t make it to the other side.

The definition of done is a sentence that lets you answer yes or no without debate. “It’s good” isn’t a definition, it’s a wish. “It needs to cite the three decisions” is a definition: you include three, or you don’t.

A history teacher who corrected eighty student submissions per grading period wrote his definition once: each submission needs to point to a specific correct thing from the student’s text and one single thing to improve, in up to four lines, with no generic praise. With the definition up front, you can check the response in seconds.

04 Before you send it to be executed, ask for what’s missing

There’s a 30-second step that avoids most of the rework: before you send someone to do it, ask what still needs to be done to do it well. Write your request and close with one line — “before executing, tell me what’s missing for you to deliver this the right way.”

The answer is usually a short and uncomfortable list: the audience is missing, the deadline is missing, the original text is missing. Exactly what you would have found after reading a bad answer—only now you discover it before, while the topic is still fresh in your mind.

A manager used this line before asking for the notice about the new expense reimbursement rule. The answer asked which month the rule applied from, and whether it covered people who had already requested reimbursements in that month. Both pieces of information were indeed missing—and they would have generated an incorrect notice sent to the entire team.

01 The confident tone of the reply says nothing about whether it is correct

A text AI does not keep a file of truths to look up. It builds the next sentence by choosing the most likely word after the previous one. When the material exists, the likely word is usually the correct one. When the material is missing, the likely word keeps showing up — only now it fills the gap with something plausible.

That is why the made-up information never comes with a warning. It arrives in the same firm sentence, with the same punctuation and the same calm as the rest. You will not notice it by reading: both versions look like they are correct.

A geography teacher asked for a support paragraph about the watershed of a Brazilian river. It came back as a clean text, with the length in kilometers and the year of a historic flood. The length was correct. The year of the flood was off by two — and nothing in the text separated one from the other.

02 Write the three items before you send the request

Checking later, on the fly, almost always turns into a lazy reread. The way out is to note beforehand what you will hold them to. That is the checking ruler: three lines, written while the topic is still fresh.

One, the fact you already know by heart — the bait. If it comes out wrong, the rest does not deserve to be read. Two, the number or name that must match the source, checked one by one. Three, what cannot appear: no statement that is not in the delivered material.

A manager would set up the team’s vacation board. Before requesting it, she wrote down three lines. The balance of days for herself, which she knows by heart. The colleagues’ departure dates, to match the spreadsheet. And the prohibition on citing a rule outside the pasted document.

03 You switch tools; the checking ruler stays the same

There are several AI conversation tools, and a new one appears every few months. They change the screen, the name, and the price. What doesn’t change is the way all of them build the sentence — and, with it, the chance of a plausible fact slipping in without warning.

That’s good news for you: the checking ruler you wrote doesn’t age with the tool. The same three-line list works in today’s tool and in the one your school will adopt next year. You learn to check once, not once per tool.

A literature teacher changed tools because the old one became slow. In the first week, the new one delivered a reading list with a title that that author never wrote. He caught the error in item two of the same checking ruler: the titles had to match the library’s catalog.

04 Checking is the task; deciding about someone stays with you

The checking ruler handles the checkable part: number, name, date, citation. There’s another part that no list covers, because it’s not about accuracy. It’s about consequences in a person’s life.

A text can have all the correct data and still propose something you wouldn’t agree to. Ask for the write-up, accept the draft, check the items — and keep to yourself the final sentence that affects someone. This part isn’t slow due to carelessness: it’s slow because it’s yours.

A manager used the tool to organize records of absences for an entire semester. The numbers were right and checked. The paragraph that suggested dismissing one of the people she deleted on the first reading. That conclusion doesn’t come from a ready-made text.

01 A subject, a folder — and no “folder by file type”

I call it piece of work any subject that shows up again in your week and has a life of its own. Each piece of work deserves its own folder, on your computer, with the material for that subject gathered together.

The rule is simple: the folder is organized by the subject, not by file type. You don’t want one spreadsheet folder and another for texts. You want one folder where, when you open it, the whole piece of work is there — the text, the number, and the agreed plan.

A manager opened a folder called “junior analyst hiring”. Inside it were the job posting description, the three interview questions, and the approved salary band table. Before that, each of those three materials was in a different place, and she restated the job at every new conversation with the AI.

02 Inside the folder goes what you would have had to explain out loud

You will see a common folder, just like any other on your computer, with three or four files inside. Nothing here is different from what you use every day — only the rule for who gets to enter changes. The rule is this: what you would have had to explain out loud if a new colleague took over the piece of work tomorrow.

In practice, this usually gives you four things. The source material: the text, the table, the notes. An example of the result you consider good. The rules of the place where that will be used. And the decision already made that nobody should reopen.

A math teacher set up the second-semester recovery folder. She included the list of covered topics, an old test he corrected, and the coordination’s guidance on the minimum grade. With those three, each new exercise request comes out at the right level without him rewriting the agreed plan.

03 Personal data and a password never go in—no exceptions, even if you’re in a rush

Anything that’s in the folder can end up being read by a system from outside your home. That’s why there’s a short list of what never goes in: another person’s ID document, home address, health data, and account number. And any password or access code, including yours.

When the material only serves with names, replace each name with a nickname before you save: Student A, Team Member B. You keep the meaning of the case and remove anything that identifies someone. It takes a minute, and there’s no going back once the data leaves.

A manager was going to save the team performance evaluation spreadsheet to ask for help writing the comments. The spreadsheet had full name, document number, and salary. She saved a second copy with Team Member A, B, and C, without the document and salary columns. Only that copy went into the folder.

04 Ten minutes per month keeps the folder standing

Any living folder quickly fills with clutter. Not because you’re disorganized, but because the work keeps moving: yesterday’s version becomes today’s wrong one. Without a short, marked cleanup, in two months the folder goes back to being the storage bin it came to fix.

Mark ten minutes at the end of the month and go through the same sequence every time. The goal isn’t to make it look nice. It’s to make sure that when you open the folder, everything inside is still true.

A biology teacher does this on the last Friday of the month, in the science fair folder. In ten minutes, he removed two expired regulations and renamed the schedule for the new date. The draft invitation that had already been sent went down into the “antigo” folder. The folder ended up with five files, all valid.

The sequence below is the same every time, and no step requires a hard decision. You just look, decide if it’s true today, and move whatever isn’t.

01 Your rules fit on a single sheet, written once

Think about who covers your vacations. You don’t call every day: you leave a sheet with your house combinations, and the person looks it up on their own. A orientation sheet is that sheet, for the work ahead.

She keeps it inside the folder you set up in the lesson before, along with the materials. Whenever you start a new conversation about that work front, you attach the sheet before asking for anything. Your rules arrive complete, and you don’t have to type any of them again.

Before you see the sheet from the inside, in the practice of this lesson, a translation. What you’ll see is a plain text, in Portuguese, written in your own way — no special screen and no code. In technology teams, this same sheet is often called an AGENTS.md. The name is his; the content is yours, and you only change the sentences.

A purchasing manager repeated two requirements in every conversation. Supplier treated by company name, and a deadline always with a date on the calendar. She wrote both lines once and stopped typing them.

02 Four questions, and the sheet is written

A good sheet isn’t a long sheet. Four questions cover almost everything you repeat today by memory, and each answer fits in two lines.

Who reads what comes out of here sets the tone and vocabulary. How I write keeps your mark: sentence length, greeting, signature. What can never appear is the hard limit: a person’s name, a number you didn’t verify, a contract value. How I know it’s ready is the criterion you already use since the very first lesson.

Answer each one with something you can verify. “Be clear” doesn’t work, because nobody can say whether it was followed. “Sentences of up to twenty words” does work: you can count.

A science teacher wrote the reminder sheet that goes in families’ agenda. Who reads it: guardians, many with little time. Never can appear: student name and individual grade. Ready when: it fits in one paragraph and ends with the date.

03 There’s a rule of yours that always applies, and a rule that’s only for that work front

After the second sheet is written, you notice you copied the same lines in both. Those are your general rules: they apply to everything you produce, in any work front. They deserve their own sheet, saved one level above the folders.

Project rules stay in the sheet of each folder, and only apply there. When the two overlap, the project one wins — it’s the one closest to the work. Writing that once avoids the discussion for every request.

A manager generally has the rule of never sending a number without the source next to it. In the board’s monthly report, there is one more rule, only for that: always compare with the same month from the previous year, never with the last month.

04 The sheet gets old — mark the date and revise

The sheet describes a job that changes. The team reorganizes, the class changes, the board asks for a different format. The sheet stays the same, followed to the letter, pushing you into a way of working that is already over.

The fix costs little: write the revision date on the first line and come back to it when the work changes shape. Read line by line and ask if it’s still true. A rule that no longer holds goes away; it isn’t marked as old—it’s removed for real.

A teacher put together the recovery study-lesson roadmap in March, with the morning class. In August, they took over the night class, with students who work. The line “propose reading for the next day” turned into an impossible demand, and they only realized it after three strange roadmaps.

01 What you redo every month is already asking for a template

There’s a task in your month that always comes back the same in form and different in content. The numbers change, the people change — but the type of work is the same. That’s the natural candidate to become a template.

A template is the complete request you learned in Lesson 1, only written all at once and saved. You don’t redo it: you open it, change what changes, and send it. The decision of how to ask was made on a day when you were calm, and it keeps applying on the days when you’re not.

Every Friday, a manager creates the department’s metrics report for the board. The four indicators, the audience, and the size are always the same. Only the week’s numbers change. She rewrites this request forty times per year.

02 Separate what never changes from what changes with each use

Making the template is making a separation, and that’s all. Take the last real request for this task and put a line in each row: does this apply every time, or only this time?

What applies to every time is written out in full and is never typed again. It’s your role, the audience, the tone, the size, and the rules you always repeat. What applies only to this time becomes a blank: a marked space, with a short example of what goes there. A blank without an example is too open, and the answer comes out different with each use.

A teacher prepares the recovery practice questions list every two months. Fixed: twelve questions, from the simplest to the hardest, with an answer key explained in two lines. Blank: the bimestre’s content and the two errors that showed up the most on the test. He wrote this once.

03 The definition of done lives inside the template

A template that only has material and format saves typing, but it doesn’t save checking. The part that gets most tiring with repetition is deciding, every time, whether the result works.

Write that decision once, inside the template, in two lines: what the answer absolutely needs to include, and what it can never do. With both in place, checking turns into counting instead of opinion.

A service manager used to answer each complaint by hand as it came in through the site’s form. In her template, the required line says: you need to repeat the problem using the customer’s words, give a deadline with a date, and sign off through the department. The forbidden line says: never promise a refund of value. Checking dropped to twenty seconds per response.

04 Save where your hand will find it on Friday

A template you can’t find in ten seconds is a template you don’t use. It lives in the front-work folder of Lesson 3, next to the orientation sheet. Not left on the desktop, and not lost in an old conversation.

Give it a name that describes the task, not the content: “template — weekly report for management” is right; “good text version 3” is not. Many chat apps also save reusable text in a menu called library, saved, or favorites. If yours has it, use both places: the folder is your copy, the app is the shortcut.

A teacher writes recommendation letters for former students who request them throughout the whole year. She saved the template in the school folder named “template — recommendation letter”. When a request comes in November, she opens it, changes the student name and the period, and delivers it the same day.

01 Every improvement in a material that already works is a bet

When you change a rule in a material that was already producing results, you’re betting that the new one will be better. Sometimes it is. Other times, the change fixes the detail that was bothering you and breaks something that had been working quietly without you noticing. You only find out on the next use, days later.

The problem isn’t betting — betting is how the material improves. The problem is betting without a return point. Without it, a bad bet costs the whole reconstruction of what you already had.

A manager adjusted the time-off rule in the shift schedule spreadsheet to cover a holiday. The holiday schedule came out right. Two weeks later, the same adjusted rule left two Saturdays in a row with nobody — and the old version of the spreadsheet had already been saved over.

02 The copy with the date in the name, made before you touched anything

The point of no return fits in one action: before you change any material that already works, duplicate the file and put today’s date at the beginning of the copy’s name. That’s it. You end up with two files in the same folder: the one you’ll change and the one that stays frozen in the good state.

Always use the same way of writing the date, from largest to smallest: year, month, and day. Written this way, the computer sorts the copies for you, from the oldest to the most recent. You can see the timeline just by looking at the folder.

A math teacher keeps the orientation sheet for recovery exam questions. Before loosening the minimum grade requirement, they duplicated the file and named the copy with that day’s date. The new criterion turned out to be too lenient. They opened the copy, read the old rule, and put back the exact sentence. It took less than a minute, without trying to remember anything.

03 Write down the reason, because what changed in the material already shows it

Saving the copy solves half. The other half is knowing why you changed it. In three months, with the two files open side by side, you can see on your own which sentence came in and which one went out. What neither of them keeps is the reason. And it’s the reason that stops you from undoing a well-made decision months later.

So the record is short, and it has only one thing: the reason. One line per change, with the date, in the same place every time. A notebook works; an notes file works. The criterion is to be able to write it in fifteen seconds—otherwise you drop it in the second week.

A manager changed the minutes template for the purchasing committee. She recorded: “I removed the estimated value field because two suppliers received the minutes by mistake.” Four months later, someone suggested putting the field back. The line answered in two seconds what no one’s memory could.

04 One line per mistake, written on the day it happens

The same notebook gets a second type of line: the mistakes. Every time a result comes out wrong and you fix it, write the date, what came out wrong, and the smallest fix that solved it. One line, no story. Write it on the day, not at the end of the month, because at the end of the month you’ve already forgotten the fix.

Isolated, these lines seem useless. In ten or twelve lines, they stop feeling that way. What shows up is repetition: the same kind of error coming back through different paths. Then you stop fixing the result of that day and correct the rule that produces the error. It’s usually a sentence missing from your sheet.

A science teacher documented for a month the flaws in the lab worksheet generated with AI. Three lines said the same thing: the safety warning for heated material was missing. They stopped adding the warning by hand every week and wrote the requirement in the orientation sheet, once.

01 You delegate the execution, never the responsibility

A task has two parts that need to be separated here: the work of producing what gets made, and the fact that someone is accountable for the outcome. The AI can take the first part. The second one is still yours, completely, even when you didn’t write a single word of what was sent.

That’s why this course calls this supervised delegation. The name is literal: you hand over the doing and you keep hold of the answering. If you don’t separate the two, you only find out on the worst possible day.

A manager at a call center asked for the monthly indicator report for the board. The text came well assembled, and she sent it without reading the last table, which switched reopened tickets for resolved ones. In the meeting, the one who explained the mistake was her — and she was right that it would be.

02 Every task fits one of three levels

There is no delegating or not delegating. There are three positions, and most tasks change places over time. Do it yourself is what you accept without looking, because an error there costs almost nothing. Do it and show it is what comes out ready and goes through your eyes before moving on. Only suggests is what you keep doing with your own hands, using the response as just a first draft or as a list of ideas.

The position doesn’t depend on the AI being good at that. It depends on who signs and what happens if it goes wrong.

A biology teacher put the review exercise list in do it and show it: he reads the ten questions before printing. The welcome text from the room’s bulletin board ended up in do it yourself. The bimonthly assessment ended up in only suggests, because the student’s grade depends on it.

03 The time to review counts toward your earnings

The account most people make is too simple: the task took forty minutes, the answer came back in one, so the earnings were thirty-nine. You still miss a share. Reviewing costs time, and that time comes out of the same day.

An honest account has three parts: write the complete request, review the answer, and adjust what came back crooked. When the sum of the three gets close to the time it takes to do it by hand, the delegation gives back nothing. It only shifts the effort to a different place, with one extra risk.

An operations manager moved the vacation schedule for the team to AI. Putting it together took twenty minutes; reviewing holidays, shift coverage, and the day limit took eighteen. She brought the schedule back to her own hands and delegated the email that goes with it, which takes fifteen minutes to write and two minutes to review.

04 The list stays true only if it has a date

Your list grows old fast, and for a good reason: you get better at asking. A task that looked simple in January can be ready to do by May. The opposite is also true, and that’s the case that hurts more.

That’s why the list needs a fixed time in your calendar, once a week, fifteen minutes. In that meeting, you upload what tested well, drop what failed twice, and note the why in one line. Without a marked date, nobody comes back: the list becomes a nice paper, written once and never read again.

Rosana, a manager of an appointment-setting service, put everything together in one month. She created the front-desk folder, wrote the orientation sheet with the department’s rules, and saved the template for the rescheduling notice. In the fourth week, the notice went out with a deadline that was already past, and the dated copy sent back the good version in two minutes. The line she wrote afterward — the deadline changed, the sheet didn’t follow — became the first item on the next review checklist.

A geography teacher scheduled his review for Friday at 4:00 PM, right after the last lesson. In fifteen minutes, he revisits the list, reviews two materials from the week, and adjusts one rule on the sheet. In four weeks, two tasks moved up a level and one moved down.

05 What you have now, together, is an environment

It’s worth naming the parts. You write a complete request, with material, format, and definition of done. You have a three-item checking ruler, written before you ask. You have a folder for each work front. You have an orientation sheet with your rules. You have a template for the task that repeats the most. And you have the dated copy, which guarantees the way back.

Separated, they’re six loose habits. Together, with the delegation list on top, they’re an environment. Each request starts in a folder, follows an orientation sheet, comes out of a template, goes through a checking ruler, and has a return point. You can explain that to someone else in five minutes — and that’s the measure that it’s set up.

A project office manager used exactly this to welcome a new person to the team. She handed over the folder, the orientation sheet, and the template on day one, and instead of two weeks of scattered questions, the onboarding took three days. What she passed on wasn’t a tool: it was the written agreement.