Hello Reader,

I use AI all over the place. ClickUp Brain inside my work management. Recipes built from whatever I dictate is actually in the fridge. Conceptual drafts of emails like this one.

But there's a version of that story I want to be careful not to tell: the one where AI does most of it and I tidy up at the end. That's not what happens. I bring the fodder (the idea, the angle, the why) and I shape it as I go. AI carries bulk. It never carries the point.

Working that out (it started as a conversation in the TimeCrafting Trust community) brought me back to a rule you already know.

The 80/20 rule (also known as the Pareto principle) was never about who does more of the work. It's about where the value lives. Twenty percent of the inputs create eighty percent of the value. The vital few and the trivial many.

So here's my ratio for working with AI: AI can carry the trivial many. The vital few stay human.

AI might touch eighty percent of the bulk — the assembly, the recall, the first rough shape. But that bulk was only ever worth twenty percent of the outcome. The twenty percent I hold. Things like knowing my family and what kind of week it's been before any recipe gets made, the dictated idea that existed before a single prompt. That's where eighty percent of the value was always going to come from.

And the vital few doesn't show up once, at the end, like an inspector with a clipboard. It's touchpoints all the way through. It starts human, it's shaped human in the middle, and it ends human, with the pass that makes the thing sound like me instead of like everyone.

Underneath it all sits trust. I can only sign my name to work my hands were actually in. The vital few is where my hands are — and every time that's true, it's a small repair in the trust between me and the people I make things for.

So, what's in your vital few, the part you'd never hand to the machine? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

The Final Flicker

You can hand the machine the bulk. You can't hand it the point.

See you later,
Mike

P.S. Yes, AI lent a hand with this email. It carried some of the bulk. The vital few (the idea, the shaping, this P.S.) stayed where it belongs.

Thanks for reading. Your time is valuable, and I don’t take it for granted. In a world pulling us in all directions, thanks for choosing The Lantern.