The two-speed rule

Cheap and easy to undo: decide fast. Costly or permanent: stop and check.

DECIDE FAST

  • Renaming a draft
  • A note to yourself
  • Reading a report
  • Sorting or renaming your own notes
  • Looking something up

STOP AND CHECK

  • Money going out
  • Anything sent or posted to someone else
  • Deleting or moving files
  • Promising a date to someone

Write your rules once, by voice

Use the dictation built into your phone or computer. Speaking is faster than typing, and you say what you really mean.

  1. Say out loud, as if to a new helper, what you never want done without asking.
  2. Say what you are happy for it to just do.
  3. Say the three things that would hurt most if wrong.
  4. Have it read your words back and shorten each to one sentence.
  5. Save the final list in your assistant's instructions and read it again next week.
Never without asking:
Fine to just do:
Hurts most if wrong: