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Ask Flex / Drowning in paperwork

Ask Flex

Drowning in busy work?

"I'm drowning in busy work. I'm busy all day and none of it seems to matter."You asked Google. Flex answered.
Flex the robot as a lifeguard in a tall chair beside a desk piled with paper, whistle in his mouth, tossing a life ring to one form bobbing in the pile, with three neat trays next to him and little Clawd under a tiny beach umbrella
Flex's short answer

Busy work is anything that keeps you moving but that nobody would miss, so the fix is finding out which tasks someone really uses. List your repeat tasks, put a name next to each one, and bring the ones with no name to your boss.

✱ Flex's tips

Find out who uses it.

1

List the repeats

Every report, log, and form you do on a schedule.

2

Put a name on each

Who reads it? No name is a clue.

3

Ask to shrink it first

A shorter version, less often, is an easy yes.

4

Let AI do the copying

Moving the same info from one place to another is draft work.

Try this in your own Claude or ChatGPT

Here are the repeat tasks I do at work, with names and private details left out: [list each one, how often you do it, about how long it takes, and who uses it, if you know]. Sort them into clearly used, not sure anyone uses it, and could be shorter. For each one in the not sure pile, write one polite question I can ask my boss. If you need something I left out, ask me.

Before you paste work stuff into any AI, check what your company allows.

If this comes back every week, the free Lab shows you how to hand it to Claude.

Free tool

The Paper Pile Word Search

Nine office words are hiding in the pile, plus one bonus word. A two-minute breather.

Find the words
Flex the robot as a lifeguard in a tall chair beside a desk piled with paper, whistle in his mouth, tossing a life ring to one form bobbing in the pile, with three neat trays next to him and little Clawd under a tiny beach umbrella
Inside the Lab

Learn this in the Lab, free

A free group where you learn to use Claude for the repeat parts of your job: email, reports, forms. Start with a 15-minute chat that maps what Claude can do in your job.

  • Free
  • No coding
  • Works in Claude
Start free on Skool
✱ What people ask
What counts as busy work at work?

Work that keeps you busy without anyone using the result. Logs nobody opens, reports nobody reads, the same numbers typed into two places.

How do I reduce administrative burden?

Find the repeats first. Anything you do the same way every week can be drafted for you. Flex has a page on it.

What if I'm drowning in paperwork?

Sort the pile once before you do any of it. Flex has a page on it.

✱ More from this pile: Drowning in paperwork
Drowning in paperwork?"Drowning in paperwork": metaphor or hyperbole?How do you get rid of paperwork?How long should you keep mail?Drowning in junk mail?What is mental load? The Paper Pile Word Search
From Nikki's blogFlex tells you how. Nikki tells you what it felt like. Read it on Clawd and Me. Read it →

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