ID8
03Foundations

Spotting your next build.

You can brief Claude, and you've given it your business. Now the question is what to actually point it at. Here's a three-question test that finds it, right in your own week.

Watch first  ·  5 min with Mark
▲ your short video sits here

Where we are.

You've got the two basics down: brief Claude well, and give it your business once so it stops being a stranger. This is the last free foundation, and it answers the obvious next question, what do you actually build first?

The lesson

Don't automate everything. Find the one thing.

When people get their first win with AI, they usually do one of two things. They try to hand off their whole job at once and get overwhelmed, or they freeze and hand off nothing. The trick is in the middle: spot one good candidate and start there.

So look at the repetitive middle of your week. Not the big strategic calls, the stuff you did more than once that needed some know-how but not real judgment. Then run each one through three quick questions:

1
Do you do it a lot?
A pattern is worth building on. A one-off isn't.
2
Can you explain how you do it?
If you can say the steps out loud, Claude can follow them. If it's pure gut feel, keep it, that part's yours.
3
Is it mostly words?
Email, notes, docs, and messages are where Claude's strongest. A spreadsheet full of numbers is a worse fit.

Anything that's a yes to all three is a candidate. That's the whole test.

The best build is already sitting in your week.
The example

Watch Dave scan his week.

Dave looks back at last week and jots down the stuff he did more than once. Then he runs each one through the three questions:

Dave's Business

The work worth building on is already here, buried in a normal week. The test just pulls the one clear winner out of the pile.

Task from Dave's week Do it
a lot?		 Can explain
how?		 Mostly
words?
Follow-up emails ✓✓✓ BUILD THIS
Setting up a new vendor ✕–– only did it once
Pricing a big job ✓✕– it's your gut call
Fixing spreadsheet numbers ✓✓✕ numbers, not words

Follow-up emails win. Dave does them constantly, he can explain exactly how he writes one, and they're all words. That's his first build.

The three questions, to reuse every week:
  1. Do you do it a lot?
  2. Can you explain how you do it?
  3. Is it mostly words?
Add to your second brain

Keep the list. It's your build queue.

Don't lose the tasks that passed. Drop them into your business file, ranked by how often they happen and how much time they eat. That's your build queue, the first place to look whenever you're ready to build something new.

📄 into your business file
MY BUILD QUEUE
1. Follow-up emails    (weekly, ~2 hrs)
2. Quote reminders     (weekly, ~1 hr)
3. Weekly recap post   (weekly, ~30 min)

⬇ The week-scan worksheet

A one-page sheet to log your week, plus a prompt that reads it and ranks your candidates. Copy, use, reuse. Free, yours to keep.

Get the template
Try it today.  Keep a scrappy list for three days. Every time you catch yourself doing something you've done before, log one line. By Friday you've got your build queue. Run the top one through the test and you're ready.