Thursday Skill

Steve Jobs's rule for simple

A skill that makes you say your point in three or four words, then cuts everything that does not serve it, instead of Claude adding more.

Step One, Set It Up

In Claude Code, open a chat in the folder that holds your business and paste this in. Claude writes the skill, four steps in order, and shows you the file before you use it.

Paste this into Claude Code

Write me a skill called make-it-simple, for anything I've written that I want shorter and clearer, like an email, a proposal, a post or a page. Write its description as the sentences I actually say, like "make it simple" and "cut this down", and say it is for my own drafts, never for writing something from nothing. When it runs, it does this, in order: 1. Asks me what I want the reader to do or know once they've read it, and waits for my answer. If my draft already makes that plain, it says it back to me in one sentence and asks if that's right. 2. Asks me to say my point in three or four words, the way Steve Jobs liked to, and won't write a word of the new version until I have. If I'm stuck, it offers three short versions taken from my own draft for me to pick from or change. 3. Goes through my draft and cuts every line, idea and pleasantry that doesn't serve that point. It cuts whole ideas, not just words, and keeps my own wording for whatever stays. 4. Hands back the short version, then a list of what it cut, each with one line on why the reader doesn't need it, and flags anything it cut that might still matter, like a date, a price or a name. It never adds anything I didn't write, no subject line, recap, greeting or offer to answer questions, and the new version is always shorter than mine. If my draft is already as short as it can be, it says so and changes nothing. Show me the file.

Step Two, Before You Send Anything Long

Paste in your draft, an email, a proposal or a post, and say make it simple. It asks what you want the reader to do, then asks for your point in three or four words, and writes nothing until you have said it. Then it cuts every line that does not serve that point, keeps your own words for what is left, and gives you a list of what it cut and why the reader does not need it.

Every time

Make it simple. Ask me what the reader should do first.

In The Claude App Instead

With no folder for a skill to live in, paste this into a new chat with your draft underneath it. It asks the same two questions before it cuts anything.

Run it once

Make this simple, the way Steve Jobs would. Before you change anything, ask me what I want the reader to do, then ask me to say my point in three or four words, and don't write anything until I have. Then cut every line and idea that doesn't serve that point, keep my own words for whatever stays, and add nothing I didn't write, no subject line, recap or pleasantries. Give me the short version, then a list of what you cut and why the reader doesn't need it. Here's my draft:

Why It Works

Ask Claude to improve something you wrote and it agrees that all of it matters, then adds more. I gave it a three-line email and it came back nearly twice as long, with a subject line, a recap and an offer to answer questions, and it called that a tightened version. Steve Jobs said simple can be harder than complex, because you have to work hard to get your thinking clean, and the man who ran his Apple Stores said he loved to put things in three or four words. Once Claude has your point that short, it is looking for what to cut, so there is nothing for it to agree with.

Jobs said it in BusinessWeek's interview of 25 May 1998, “There's sanity returning”: “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” Ron Johnson's line is from Gimlet's Without Fail, as Cult of Mac reported it on 5 December 2018.

One Honest Bit

Short is not the same as thin. It cuts what does not serve your point, so if your point is wrong, the short version is wrong too, which is why it asks you for the point and never picks it for you. Check the list of what it cut, because a date or a price you meant to keep is easy to lose.

Want to get better at this?

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This page is one job. The whole thing is a set of them running off the same foundation, the folder your AI works out of, the brief on how you like things done, the accounts it can reach and the skills that run off all of it, so your admin gets done the way you would do it. It is what I teach one to one, on your own machine and against your own work, and the quickest way to find out what yours would look like is a proper chat about it.

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