Write the task the way you would for a new starter

There is a habit people bring from chatbots, and it costs them the first week. They write a paragraph of scaffolding — you are an expert finance assistant, think step by step, be concise — and then, somewhere at the end, the actual job.

Delete the scaffolding. Write the job.

#What a good first task looks like

Here is one that works, in full:

Chase whoever is late paying us. Leave Northwind alone, they always pay late. Anything over £5,000, check with me before you send it.

Twenty-eight words. No role-play, no formatting instructions, no thinking directives. It contains the three things that actually matter, and nothing else.

#Why the scaffolding hurts

Two reasons, and the second is the one people miss.

The first is obvious: instructions about how to think compete with information about what to do. You have spent your attention budget on style.

The second is that scaffolding is not reusable. A paragraph tuned to one question is a paragraph you rewrite for the next one. A plain job description is a standing instruction — you can say do this every Monday and it means something, because it was never about one moment.

#Correct it once, out loud

The first result will be wrong in some small way. This is the most important thing that happens all week, and most people handle it badly by rewriting the original instruction.

Do not rewrite. Correct, in a sentence, where you are:

Not that Halcyon invoice, that one is disputed. Never chase a disputed invoice.

That sentence is now a rule. It is attached to what it corrects, it carries your name, and it shows up next time as "I skipped the disputed one".

#Three tasks worth starting with

Pick something with a clear finish line and a low blast radius. Good first jobs share a shape: repetitive, boring, and obvious when done wrong.

1. The inbox nobody owns. Read it, answer what is answerable, hand you the rest with a one-line summary each.
2. The weekly thing you always do late. The report, the reconciliation, the follow-ups. Ask for it every Monday at eight.
3. The chase. Invoices, missing documents, unanswered requests. It is the job that most rewards never getting bored.

Bad first jobs: anything where the standard lives in one person's head, and anything where a mistake is expensive and invisible. Get to those in week three, after corrections have taught it your standard, and with a limit set.

#What changes by the second week

Almost nobody keeps writing tasks. They start writing responsibilities.