Section C5 · Another way to slice it
The Six Verbs
The manual's eight blocks explain what the machine is made of. The six verbs explain what you can do with it, and for most people the verbs are the better place to start: nobody wakes up wanting a context window, but everyone wakes up wanting something understood, made, or off their plate. Find your verb, then go back to the blocks when you want to know how it works.
1. Understand
Absorb and simplify: articles, contracts, school letters, voice notes, whole books. What good looks like: a faithful summary at the length you asked for, plus an honest note of what is unclear. Failure mode: trusting a summary of something you will be held accountable for without spot-checking the original. Try it today: paste in the longest email you have been avoiding and ask for the plain-English version and the one thing that needs a reply.
2. Create
First drafts of anything: text, images, plans, code. What good looks like: a starting point in seconds that would have taken an evening, which you then make yours. Failure mode: shipping the draft untouched; unedited machine output has a recognisable smell, and everyone can smell it. Try it today: the difficult message you have been putting off, drafted three ways: firm, warm, and short.
3. Visualize
Make ideas visible: diagrams, mock-ups, charts, before-and-after pictures. What good looks like: the thing in your head on a screen in minutes, close enough to react to. Failure mode: mistaking a beautiful picture for an accurate one; generated images decorate, they do not measure. Try it today: a sketch of the garden change or room layout you keep describing to people with your hands.
4. Build
Assemble working things: spreadsheets with working formulas, small tools, whole apps. The verb with the highest ceiling and the hardest last mile. What good looks like: a working version of a thing you actually needed, same day. Failure mode: believing the demo is the product; read The last mile before showing strangers. Try it today: describe a small tool you wish existed for one household chore and watch what comes back.
5. Automate
Put recurring work on autopilot: the weekly report, the inbox triage, the morning briefing. The only verb that keeps working while you sleep. What good looks like: a job you used to do every week that now arrives done. Failure mode: automating a thing you had not yet made reliable by hand, which simply manufactures errors on a schedule; and leaving an automation unsupervised anywhere near money or sending buttons (see defence). Try it today: nothing. Do the verb by hand for two weeks first, then automate the version that works.
6. Decide
Narrow options, weigh trade-offs, get a second opinion. What good looks like: your shortlist stress-tested, the case against your favourite made properly, the questions you had not thought to ask. Failure mode: letting it decide. It will happily hold an opinion; it will not carry the consequences. Decisions with real stakes keep a human signature (see the wrong-tool guide). Try it today: give it a decision you have already made and ask what would have to be true for the other option to win.
Most weeks you will use three of these before lunch without noticing. The skill is noticing: name the verb before you open the app, and you will pick the right tool, the right sized brain, and the right level of trust automatically.