There is a lot of advice about becoming good at AI. Learn prompting. Learn agents.
Learn automation. Learn the latest model. Learn how to build AI workflows.
All of that can help. But I think there is something more important. Know your own work.
Because the better you understand your work, the easier it becomes to see where AI can help. Think about a consultant. If they know exactly how they find clients, prepare for meetings, write proposals, create reports, follow up, and deliver their work, they can quickly spot where AI might save time.
But if they don't understand their own process, AI just becomes another collection of tricks. The same is true for a business owner. And a teacher.
And a marketer. And a freelancer. And anyone else.
AI rewards people who can identify problems clearly. That is why I don't think AI is replacing the importance of human skills. In some ways, it is increasing it.
The ability to ask good questions matters. The ability to think clearly matters. The ability to understand a customer matters.
The ability to communicate matters. The ability to judge whether something is actually good matters. AI can produce an answer.
You still have to decide whether it is the right answer. That is why my own AI learning has become less about memorising prompts and more about understanding workflows. For example, instead of asking:
“What prompt can make AI better at this?” I might ask:
“Why am I doing this task manually in the first place?” That leads to a much better conversation. Maybe the problem is the input.
Maybe the information is poorly organised. Maybe the workflow has too many steps. Maybe I should automate one part.
Maybe I should remove another part completely. Maybe AI is not even the right answer. This is what I mean by knowing your own work.
Before you can use AI well, you need to know what “better” looks like. Faster is not always better. More content is not always better.
More automation is not always better. More tools are definitely not always better. The goal is better outcomes.
That is the standard I want to keep coming back to. And it is one reason I believe AI creates such an interesting opportunity for ordinary people. You already know something.
You already have experience. You already understand a problem. AI can increase what you can do with that knowledge.
You do not have to start from zero. You can start from what you already know. Then add leverage.
That is a much more exciting way to think about AI than simply asking which new tool you should learn this week. The real advantage is not knowing AI.
It is knowing what to do with it.
