The two-second question

Everything in this course reduces to one question, asked in the two seconds before you paste: if this text appeared somewhere I did not intend, who would be hurt, and how badly?

The answer is not always "nobody." A meeting agenda, a draft of a general policy, a public blog post, a question about how to write a formula: nobody. Your own notes, with no one else in them: nobody but you. A client's email, a colleague's appraisal, a list of pupils, a supplier contract, a patient letter: someone, and possibly badly.

The question is not asking you to be paranoid. It is asking you to notice. Most people who paste the wrong thing were not being reckless; they were being fast, and the two seconds were skipped. This lesson is about putting them back.

In practice. A team lead built the habit of saying the question silently before every paste. She estimates it stops her once a week. The rest of the time it takes two seconds and she carries on.

The time it stopped her that she remembers: a message from a member of staff about a health issue, which she had been about to paste in to get help with a sensitive reply. She wrote the reply herself.

At your desk. For one working day, say the two-second question before every paste into any AI tool. Keep a tally of how many times it stopped you, and what the text was. That tally is the start of your rulebook.

Write it down.

• Times the question stopped me today:
• What the text was:
• What I did instead: