The AI Starter Kit
Five printable artifacts for everyone at work who is not a developer — the tools, not the argument.
Everything on this site eventually turns into an argument about how to work. These are the five bits worth keeping on paper — pulled out of the posts, stripped of the reasoning, and written so you can print them and use them on Monday.
No signup, no email address. Read any of them here, or take the PDF — it's laid out for paper, with room to write in. Each one links back to the post it came from if you want the evidence behind it.
What's in it
Can I put this into AI?
A decision card for one person. Starts with the question almost nobody asks first — whose account are you on — because paying for a personal plan does not make it a work account.
From Shadow AI: You're Probably Using AI Your Company Never Approved
The three checks
Load-bearing claims, then what it could not have known, then recompute one thing at random. About five minutes, and tuned for the errors that actually get through rather than the ones you expect.
From How to Check AI's Work: You're Looking for the Wrong Mistake
Prompt library starter
Not an empty template. Five prompts for the tasks most office jobs repeat — meeting notes, the recurring report, email in your voice, a spreadsheet formula, and reading something long.
From Build a Reusable AI Assistant for the Task You Do 20 Times a Week
Your first 30 days
Four weeks, about twenty minutes each, every step using work you already have to do. If you find yourself inventing exercises, you have drifted.
Protect these skills
A worksheet. Name the two or three worth defending, name three you are happy to lose, and change how you work on the first list only.
From AI Skill Erosion: How to Use It Without Getting Worse at Your Job
Downloads
Every one comes two ways — read it here in your browser, or download the PDF to print and fill in. Take the bundle, or just the one you need.
Everything
All five as print-ready PDFs, plus a markdown/ folder with the same five as editable text: the decision card, the three checks, the prompt library, the 30-day plan, and the skills worksheet.
The five
Can I put this into AI?
A decision card for one person. Starts with the question almost nobody asks first — whose account are you on — because paying for a personal plan does not make it a work account.
The three checks
Load-bearing claims, then what it could not have known, then recompute one thing at random. About five minutes, and tuned for the errors that actually get through rather than the ones you expect.
Prompt library starter
Not an empty template. Five prompts for the tasks most office jobs repeat — meeting notes, the recurring report, email in your voice, a spreadsheet formula, and reading something long.
Your first 30 days
Four weeks, about twenty minutes each, every step using work you already have to do. If you find yourself inventing exercises, you have drifted.
Protect these skills
A worksheet. Name the two or three worth defending, name three you are happy to lose, and change how you work on the first list only.
The bundle also carries a markdown/ folder with the same five as plain text, if you'd rather edit them than print them.
If you manage a team
This kit is for one person getting good at AI. Rolling it out to a team is a different job with different artifacts — a policy, a pilot, a workshop agenda, a way of measuring what stuck. That's the manager's AI toolkit, and it's also free.