The most common beginner mistake is not bad prompting, it is picking the wrong tasks. Before handing anything to Claude, run three questions in your head:
- Stakes. If the answer is wrong and I do not catch it, what happens? Low stakes, go ahead. High stakes, Claude drafts and you decide.
- Can I check it? Delegate freely where you can verify the result yourself: a draft you will read, a summary of a document you own. Be careful where you cannot, like facts in a field you do not know.
- Does it need to be me? Condolences, apologies, anything where the other person needs you and not polished text. Claude can help you think it through, but the words should be yours.
Great first delegations: first drafts, summaries, planning legwork, explanations, comparisons. Keep for yourself: final decisions, promises, and anything you would not defend as your own.
Practice
Take your normal week and find the tasks worth delegating.
Here are five recurring tasks from my week: [list them]. For each one, tell me honestly how much of it you could take over, what I would still need to check myself, and where you would be unreliable. Then pick the one we should try together right now.
Done when: you can name two tasks you will hand to Claude this week and one you deliberately will not, with a reason.