AI isn't making you dumber

Everyone warning you that AI will make you a lazier thinker has it backwards. For most of your working day, offloading to AI is exactly what buys you the room to think properly.

I agree with the warning on one kind of thinking. Strategy and judgement calls should stay in your head. If AI is deciding who your business serves or what you charge, you have a problem.

But those calls are a small fraction of your day. Most of it goes on routine work you've done a thousand times before: the quote that follows the same shape as the last fifty, the email you've answered a hundred different ways. That work drains the energy your best thinking needs, and it teaches you nothing you don't already know.

That's the work I offload to AI first.

The way to do it is to build a Skill. A Skill is just an SOP for AI: a document that tells it the inputs it needs, the context of your business, the output you expect, and a couple of examples of what good looks like. Once the Skill is written, you set the task to run on a Routine, so it happens on schedule without you touching it.

I have 12 Routines that run through the night. Reports drafted and admin cleared before I sit down in the morning. Not one of them has made me a lazier thinker. They hand me back the hours and the headspace for the work only I can do.

Pick one task you've done a thousand times, write down exactly how you do it, and hand that document to AI as its first Skill.