Situations
Find your situation, get one clear move
Each page starts with the single most useful thing to do, in two or three sentences. Then it gives a few free steps for this week, what not to do, and an honest limit. Nothing here asks you to stop using AI. It asks you to go first.
At work
I ask AI before every email
A two-line rule, your point first, and a check in place of a rewrite.
I cannot start a document without AI
Three questions and ten bad lines of your own before the AI opens.
My manager wants more AI and I feel less able
Hand over what you can check. Go first on what is your call.
I use AI to make every small decision
Write your pick and one reason, then ask what you missed.
Students, 16 and up
Everyone in my class uses AI and I am falling behind
Behind on speed is not behind on learning. A different scoreboard.
I have an exam in two weeks and I learned the course through AI
A closed-book test today, then the AI as examiner for the gaps.
An AI detector flagged my work and I wrote it myself
Gather your drafts, ask for a conversation, and do not rewrite.
English is my second language and I lean on AI to write
Your own English first, then a list of errors you fix yourself.
Parents
My 15-year-old does all their homework with AI
One rule, agreed calmly: allowed, after you have tried.
My child is under 13 and uses AI at a friend's house
Ask to be shown, set one rule, and what the age rules say.
We agreed an AI rule and it lasted three days
Restart smaller, with one check on a set day and a way out.
The school requires an AI tool and I am not sure about it
Six plain questions to send the school, and a rule for home.
Teachers
Half the essays sound the same
Start the next essay in the room and ask what changed.
I want to allow AI and still see thinking
Allow it at one named point: after a written attempt.
I have no time to redesign my assignments
Two lines added to the task you already set.
My school has no AI policy
A three-line class rule you can use until there is one.
Developers
I cannot debug without pasting the error into AI
One guess and five minutes before you paste.
I am a junior developer and worried I am not learning
Ask why before you ask for code, and one AI-free task a week.
I accept code changes I do not understand
One line on what it does and why, or it is not kept.
Not on the list?
The same move works in most situations: write your own attempt, then ask the AI to coach you on it. If AI has become where you take your feelings more than your tasks, we have one gentle page for that: leaning on AI for support.