Now the work is easy, where is the moat? / Video 7 is live / Steve Jobs's rule for simple

[IN SHORT]

This week

• One thought: now it is so easy to do the work, where is the moat?
• Case study: an accountant who used to lose things in her inbox, now has it nicely tidied away, with every attachment saved to the right client's files.
• YouTube video seven on skills is live: how to teach Claude to do each job the same way every time.
• Great minds: Steve Jobs was very passionate about keeping things short and simple, Claude is not, here is how to get it to behave like this.
• Client win: an executive coach's thought-provoking weekly newsletter, with advice on leading a team.

[ONE THOUGHT]

Where is the moat?

On Sunday I posted a video saying the most productive way to use AI has nothing to do with AI.

AI has this uncanny ability to make us feel like we're doing loads, so we end up doing the jobs that would have sat at the bottom of our to-do list, or never made it onto it in the first place.

I spent days building my website, and it felt like really productive work, but almost nobody finds me through it, they find me through my videos or here in my newsletter.

Meanwhile, the jobs that need a bit more effort and would make a difference to my business, like planning videos and working on my hooks, get pushed into next week.

So now the doing is the easy part, the moat is deciding what's worth doing.

Or, as one of Jeff Bezos's colleagues at Amazon once told him:

"Jeff, you have enough ideas to destroy Amazon."

Don't be like Jeff could've been, be like he is now.

So before you open Claude, it's worth asking:

• What matters: what's really important for your business right now.
• Whether it ties back: if what you're about to build doesn't, why are you prioritising it?
• What you're putting off: the job that needs a bit more effort, and would actually make a difference.

Answer those first, and the time Claude saves you goes on the work that actually grows your business.

Watch it →

[CASE STUDY]

An inbox that stays tidy

A couple of weeks ago I told you about an accountant whose quote for a client Claude corrected without being asked to.

In our next session she told me her emails had "gone a bit mad", and that she paid a VA to sort them every few months, in her words:

"I keep it nice and tidy for about a month, maybe two months at a push. And then it just gets a mess again."

So we spoke through what she normally asked the VA to do, and then gave Claude the brief:

• Read emails: filed away in that client's folder.
• Attachments: saved down into that client's files.
• Not sure: a "review" label, left in the inbox for her.
• Unread: left alone.

The first run was a test that didn't move anything, so she could check it was going to behave correctly before it touched anything.

She checked it, and it had sorted them the way she would have, so we saved it as a skill she can run whenever she likes.

She's run it twice since, and in her words (drum roll please):

"My inbox is so tidy now."

What more could you want?

All of her client files and folders are up to date with what needs to be in there, and she doesn't have to move them anymore.

Next is putting it on a schedule, so it runs every morning without her asking.

[NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO]

Video seven, the runbooks

A skill is a job written down once, so Claude does it the same way every time rather than a bit differently every day.

In this video I cover:

• Which jobs to hand over: five questions that tell you which ones are worth it.
• Your first skill: written by Claude interviewing you, and tested before you trust it.
• Chaining them: one skill handing its work to the next.
• My own: the skills I run my business on, from chasing people to cold outreach.

So if there's a job you do the same way every week, it's a good one to start with.

Watch it →

[GREAT MINDS]

Steve Jobs's rule for simple

Because Claude is the world's most convincing yes man, I've started a series where I turn history's greatest minds into skills that stop it agreeing with you.

And this week's is Steve Jobs's rule for simple.

We've all been there, asking Claude to improve a three-line email and getting back something that's nearly twice as long.

But in an age where anyone can write ten pages in seconds, the person who can write it in the fewest words wins.

And Steve Jobs knew this long before AI, in his words:

"Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple."

And the man who ran his Apple stores said he used to love putting things in three or four words.

So I turned it into a skill, and now I just say "make it simple" and it runs against whatever I've written:

1. First, it asks what you actually want the reader to do.
2. Then it won't write a word until you've said your point in three or four words.
3. Then it goes through your draft and cuts every line that doesn't serve that point.
4. And finally, it hands you back the final version, with what it's cut and why you didn't need it.

Run it on the next email you're about to send, and see how much of it you actually needed.

Get the skill →

[CLIENT WINS]

A newsletter worth reading

One of my clients, an executive coach who works with CEOs and their leadership teams, now sends a weekly newsletter.

We set up the system to allow him to produce this together, but I wanted to share it because personally I've been blown away with how useful the content in it has been.

Everything from short stories that make you think to prioritisation frameworks, if you're a business leader, it makes for a genuinely thought-provoking read.

Like this, from a recent issue:

"Space only works when people know what's expected of them. Collaboration is earned, and a team that hasn't yet shown it can make that kind of call together needs you to set direction and give clarity first."

A new one lands every Wednesday, and it takes about four minutes to read, so it's well worth signing up.

Read it →