Command the Machines
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BAND I · TIME
Week 1 of 12 · VENICE · 1 m

Stop Using AI Like an Amateur

Your own desk first. Nobody transforms a company on the free tier.

This week is invisible work. Your settings, your list, your connections, your first worker, and one honest page about your own time. Nobody will ever see any of it — and everything in the next eleven weeks stands on it.

Not your desk? This week's moves work on any desk: the right brain for each job · the list of work you should never do again · a worker that reports before you wake.

Today · one task

Click the model name next to the send button, set effort to high, and leave it there.

You finished the sprint with a machine that works. Today takes ten minutes to make sure it's working at full power — most people never touch these two settings.

You'll have: your settings fixed for good, and a rule you can say out loud — which brain gets which job.

  1. Click the model name next to your send button. Both dials live in that one menu — which brain, and how hard it thinks.
  2. Set effort to HIGH and leave it there. High is the default and the default is right. Two exceptions worth knowing: drop to low for bulk and trivia when you want your allowance to last the month; push to max for the one genuinely hard problem a week where a shallow answer is expensive.
  3. Put this week's real decision to the heavyweight. Not a test question — the one actually sitting on your desk. Use the press below so the answer is worth signing, then read it against one question: would I sign this?

I'm making a real decision and I want your best thinking, not a summary. Here's the decision: {say it plainly} The options as I see them: {list them} What's constraining me: {money, time, people — whatever is true} Give me your recommendation, the strongest case against it, and the one thing you'd want to know that I haven't told you.

COPY

Rescue — Can't see the effort setting? Click the model name next to the send button — it's inside that menu, not in Settings.

BrainWhat it's forCost to you
Fable / OpusThings you sign. Strategy, hard calls, anything with your name on it.Heaviest on your allowance
SonnetThe daily grind. Drafts, summaries, routine thinking.Middle
HaikuQuick checks and small questions. Near-instant.Lightest

Higher effort means it thinks longer and answers better — and your allowance drains faster. That's the whole trade. A one-word question to the heavyweight at max is money on fire; a two-million-rand decision to the sprinter at low is worse. Match the weight of the brain to the weight of the call. (Names change as models update; the rule doesn't: heavy calls to the heavy brain, daily work to the middle, quick checks to the fast one.)

Did you get this done?

Your dial is on high, and one real decision has been through the heavyweight.

Want more — Tell whoever fields your requests — EA, assistant, chief of staff — the same rule, so what lands on your desk is already routed to the right brain.

Tomorrow: repetition becomes a workforce.

Today · one task

Talk for two minutes about your last two working days — voice, messy is fine. Then paste the prompt above: it hands back every task you've done three or more times.

Yesterday fixed the machine. Today you start the list the whole course works through: everything you keep doing yourself.

You'll have: a list of eight or more jobs you keep doing with your own hands — the jobs this course hands over, one by one.

  1. Open Claude and talk — don't type, don't tidy. Two minutes, voice: walk through your last two working days. Everything you touched — meetings, mails, chasing, formatting, forwarding, checking. Messy is fine; the machine sorts.
  2. Paste the press below into the same chat. It pulls out everything you've done three or more times and hands back your list. If your two minutes came up short, it asks a follow-up or two before finalising — answer and it finishes.
  3. Save the list in your Project as THE LIST — the one home from the foundations. From today, anything you catch yourself doing a third time goes on it. No exceptions, no judgement. It's not a to-do list; it's a hiring plan.

I just described my last two working days out loud. Build my list: every task in there I've clearly done three or more times on a computer — mine, and the ones I described other people doing for me. One line per task, plainest possible words. If you found fewer than eight, ask me one or two questions ("what did you do after lunch?", "what did you forward to someone?") before you finalise. Aim for eight to fifteen lines. At the bottom add this sentence exactly: "Every line on this list is a colleague you haven't built yet."

COPY

Rescue — Hate voice notes? Type five messy lines instead — the press doesn't care about tidy.

Did you get this done?

The list exists, it has at least eight lines, and every line is something you've done three or more times.

Want more — Ask one person on your team for the same two-minute voice note. Where their list overlaps yours is where the money is — Week 6 goes there.

Your list lives in your Project. From here it only grows — and this course spends eleven weeks taking lines off it.

Today · one task

Settings → Connectors: connect your mail, your calendar and your files, then ask in a new chat, "What did I commit to last week?"

Two days in, the machine is strong but blind — it has never seen your business. Ten minutes from now it answers with your real meetings and your real mail, by name.

You'll have: your mail, calendar and files connected — and one answer about your own business, by name.

  1. Open Settings → Connectors and connect three things: your mail, your calendar, your files (Gmail, Google Calendar and Drive — or your Microsoft equivalents). Each is a couple of taps and a sign-in you've done a hundred times. Ten minutes at your desk beats twenty on your phone.
  2. Company account blocked by IT? You're not stuck — you're on tier two. Forward the ready-made note below to your IT admin, connect whatever isn't blocked (calendar usually isn't, and it carries most of this week), and keep moving. Sending that note passes today's lesson — the rest lands when IT clicks yes.
  3. Ask the proof question in a new chat: "What did I commit to last week?" Watch the answer cite your actual meetings and your actual sent mail — by name, by date. That moment is the whole lesson: generic advice just became advice about your business.

(The note to forward to IT — edit the bracket and send:) Hi {name} — I'm connecting my work mail, calendar and files to Claude, the AI assistant our leadership programme runs on. It connects through our own sign-in, acts only on my instruction, shares nothing outside my account, and can be disconnected centrally at any time. Security details: support.claude.com. Can you approve the connection for my account? Happy to hop on a call if easier.

COPY

Rescue — Sign-in blocked? That's tier two above — forward the note to IT, connect your calendar, keep moving. You've passed.

What this does not do

Claude touches your accounts only on your instruction, inside your own login. It posts, sends or shares nothing you didn't ask for, and you can disconnect any of the three in the same menu, any time. The full security week is Week 10; this box is its first stone.

Did you get this done?

You asked what you committed to last week — and the answer named your real meetings and your real emails. (IT-blocked? The note is sent and your calendar is connected — that's a pass.)

Want more — Ask the uncomfortable one: "Which emails from the last month have I still not replied to?" Thirty seconds, and you'll act on it.

You didn't become more technical today. You became more connected — and only one of those was ever the barrier.

Today · one task

Open a scheduled task and paste in the prompt above. Run it once, now — and watch today's morning note build itself in front of you.

Yesterday it saw your business for the first time. Today you say a thing once — and it happens every morning from now on, whether your laptop is open or shut.

You'll have: your first worker, running without you — and The Roll, your register of every worker you'll build, with one name on it.

  1. Open a scheduled task — the tasks side of Claude — and paste the morning-note order below. This is where an instruction becomes a standing order: described once, run on schedule, on Anthropic's side, laptop open or shut.
  2. Run it once, right now, and watch. Today's note builds in front of you — your commitments, the thing that's slipping, the question to ask. That's the win. Now set the schedule: every weekday, 06:00.
  3. Name it — THE MORNING NOTE — and put it on The Roll, the register at the top of this page. Name, one line on what it does, and what it may touch (this one: read and report only). Then close your laptop. Tomorrow's note arrives while you sleep — not the win anymore, just the proof.

Every weekday at 06:00, read yesterday's calendar and my inbox, then write me a short morning note: the three things I committed to, one thing that looks like it's slipping, and one question I should ask somebody today. Under 120 words. You read and report only — you never send, delete or reply to anything.

COPY

Rescue — First run came back thin? It can only read what's connected — if mail is still with IT, the calendar-only note is the real note for now. It fattens the day IT says yes.

You just built a machine. Give it a name.

Say what it does and what it's allowed to touch, then tap the button. It joins the count at the top of your screen — that count is your workforce, and it grows every week.
Did you get this done?

It ran on its own and the note arrived. You didn't touch anything.

Want more — Add a Friday edition to the same order — the week's commitments, kept or slipped. One instruction, now compounding weekly.

Name it, say what it may touch, add it to The Roll. That list is your workforce — and by Week 12 it will be long.

Today · one task

Open a new chat on the big model, effort on high. Paste the prompt above and let it read six months of your calendar and sent mail.

Four days of setup pay out today: one paste, and the machine reads your last six months back to you. You're almost certainly wrong about where your own week goes. Today you find out by how much.

You'll have: one page that tells you where your last six months went — with numbers, and your biggest time sink named.

  1. Open a new chat, pick the heavyweight, effort on high. This is a signature job — six months of your life is on the table.
  2. Paste the press below and let it dig. It reads your calendar and sent mail through the connections you made on Wednesday. It takes a few minutes — make the coffee; the machine is doing the honest work.
  3. Read the page once, slowly, and circle your number one. Then hold it against the week: your list from Tuesday says WHAT to hand over, Thursday's worker showed HOW — this page is WHY.

Read my calendar and my sent mail for the last six months. Build me one honest page: (1) my ten biggest uses of time, each with estimated hours per month; (2) the five people and threads that consumed the most of me; (3) the share of my time that went to work only I could have done, versus work a capable person or machine could have carried. Number everything. Say plainly that these are estimates from what you can access — I want honest, not precise. No advice, no judgement — just where the hours show up. I'll draw the conclusions.

COPY

Rescue — Numbers feel off? They're estimates and the page says so — circle the number one sink anyway. Being twenty percent wrong about the right target still aims the next eleven weeks.

Did you get this done?

You can name your biggest time sink, and there's a number next to it.

Want more — Ask one follow-up: "Which of these would you take off me first, and what would the standing order say?" Save the answer — that's next week, early.

Few executives ever see this page about themselves. Week one is done: your settings, your list, your connections, one worker on The Roll, and the honest page. None of it shows from the outside. Everything stands on it.

Week 1

Week one is in.

Five for five. Your dials are set, your hiring list is running, your mail and calendar and files are wired in, one worker reported for duty this morning without being asked, and you know — with a number — where your time actually goes. None of this shows from the outside. Everything in the next eleven weeks stands on it.

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The week's quiz · seven questionsNO PASS MARK · IT TEACHES
Continue → Week 2