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How to ThinkIn the Age of AI

Classify every task as ONLY ME, COULD DELEGATE, or SHOULD…

Calculate your attention allocation by categorizing each task as ONLY ME (requires unique judgment), COULD DELEGATE (someone/something else can do it at 80%+ quality), or SHOULD NOT EXIST (adds no value), then delegate or eliminate everything outside ONLY ME to reclaim attention for highest-value work.

When This Fires

  • During weekly or monthly attention audits
  • When overwhelm signals that you're spending attention on the wrong things
  • When you feel busy but not productive — the symptom of high COULD DELEGATE and SHOULD NOT EXIST loads
  • Complements Delegate any decision reversible within one week at low… (delegation by reversibility) with this broader attention allocation framework

Common Failure Mode

Classifying COULD DELEGATE tasks as ONLY ME because "I do it better": "Only I can write these status updates the way stakeholders expect." Can someone else write them at 80% quality? If yes → COULD DELEGATE. Your 20% quality advantage on status updates doesn't justify consuming attention that could produce irreplaceable strategic analysis. The perfectionism that keeps COULD DELEGATE tasks in the ONLY ME column is the enemy of attention allocation.

The Protocol

(1) List all recurring tasks you performed this week. (2) Classify each: ONLY ME: does this genuinely require my unique judgment, expertise, or relationships? Would anyone else produce significantly below 80% quality? COULD DELEGATE: could someone/something else produce 80%+ of the quality I would? Be honest — the 80% bar is lower than you think. SHOULD NOT EXIST: if this task disappeared entirely, would any important outcome change? (3) For COULD DELEGATE → identify the delegate (person, tool, AI, automated process) and transfer (Every delegation needs three written components). (4) For SHOULD NOT EXIST → eliminate. Stop doing it. If no one notices within two weeks, it genuinely didn't need to exist. (5) Track: what percentage of your week is ONLY ME? That's your effective attention utilization rate (ONLY ME time below 50% of working hours signals…).