My desktop looks like a crime scene

(Formerly The AI-Powered Business Advisor)

_{Issue #8 — February 24, 2026}

Right now, my computer desktop looks like a disaster.

Files scattered everywhere. Screenshots I took three weeks ago that I swore I’d organize “tomorrow.” PDFs with names like “Final_v3_REAL_FINAL.pdf.” A downloads folder so bloated the lights in my office dim when I try to open it. I’ve been putting off cleaning it up for weeks. Maybe longer. And every time I sit down to work, there’s this low-grade hum of friction… like trying to cook in a messy kitchen. You can do it. But nothing flows.

Here’s what I want so share with you today…

• Why five invisible words are stealing hours from your week

• How to give Claude your playbook (not just your questions)

• The first domino that changes everything else

I finally sat down to deal with it this week. Not because I found the motivation. Because I found a better way...and because I couldn't stand it any longer 

But first, let me tell you about the five most expensive words in a solo consultant’s vocabulary.

“Oh, I’ll just do it.”

You say them 50 times a day. I say them too. And every single time, it feels like no big deal. Renaming a file. Formatting a document. Moving a screenshot to the right folder. Copying notes from one place to another. Thirty seconds here. Two minutes there.

Next thing you know, your day is gone, you're exhausted, and you didn't get the most important things done.

Here’s what's happening...

Those tiny moments are adding up. Not just in time. In attention. Every time you break focus to do something a system could handle, you’re doing $50-an-hour work when you should be doing $500-an-hour thinking. And the worst part? You don’t even notice. It just feels like a normal day.

How many times do you say, “Oh, I’ll just do it.”

Each one feels invisible in the moment. But stacked together, they’re the reason most people never get to the work that actually matters.

Look, you left corporate to stop doing other people’s busy work. You didn’t leave so you could spend your Tuesday morning renaming PDFs and hunting for a proposal you saved somewhere last week. You left to think. To advise. To do the work only you can do.

And yet here we are. Doing all of it ourselves. Because there’s nobody to hand it to.

Or so we thought.

Last week I showed you how to give Claude a brain. Maybe you followed along and set up a project, upload your positioning and your ideal client avatar, and suddenly Claude stopped guessing who you are. It became a thinking partner instead of a search engine.

This week, I want to show you the next step. How to give Claude your playbook.

It’s called a skill file. And it’s simpler than you think.

A skill file is a plain text document, written in English, that tells Claude how you want something done. Not what to do in the moment. How to do it every time.

Think about it this way…

You’ve spent 20 or 30 years writing instructions for other people. SOPs for your team. Onboarding docs for new hires. Process manuals for departments. You know how to describe “here’s how we do this” better than almost anyone. A skill file is the same thing. Same skill you’ve used your whole career. New employee.

You write it once. Claude follows it every time. Your team can use it too. And as AI gets smarter, your skill gets more powerful without you rewriting a word.

Now here’s where it gets personal for you…

You can use pre-built .skill files, or you can create your own.

There are times when installing pre-built files makes a lot of sense.

But sometimes it doesn't. 

And right there is the lesson I want you to take from this.

Installing someone else’s system and running it blindly is a franchise. It works until it doesn’t match how you actually think, work, or serve clients. Understanding the architecture and making it yours… that’s a Category of One. Even with AI.

This is the same principle I teach about consulting. Don’t copy someone else’s business model. Don’t license someone else’s playbook. Document YOUR expertise. Build YOUR system. Create something that can’t be replicated because it’s built on decades of YOUR experience.

That applies to your AI tools just as much as it applies to your positioning.

But here’s what made the biggest difference in how I’m thinking about this…

Gary Keller wrote in “The One Thing” that a single domino can knock over another domino 50% larger than itself. Line them up right, and a two-inch domino eventually topples something the size of a building. The math is real. It’s geometric progression.

A clean desktop leads to faster file retrieval. Faster retrieval leads to faster production. Faster production means more client capacity. More capacity means more revenue. The skill file isn’t about organizing your downloads. It’s the first domino.

And the beautiful thing is… it compounds. Every small system you build, every process you hand off to Claude, every “Oh, I’ll just do it” that you replace with “Claude handles that now”… it frees up space. Not just time. Mental space. The kind of space where your best thinking happens. The kind of space that lets you actually live the life you built this practice to have.

Here’s my challenge for you. Pick one thing you keep saying “I’ll just do it” about. One small, repeating task that eats minutes from your day. Write down, in plain English, exactly how you want it done. Step by step. Like you’re training a new hire on their first day.

You just wrote your first skill file.

What did you think of today’s email? 👍 Good | 😐 Ok | 👎 Bad — Hit reply and let me know why.

Dale

Want to dive deeper? Check out these related articles:

👉  The Prosperous Consultant | Issue #7
👉  The Prosperous Consultant | Issue #6

You might also find these interesting:

🔎  The Trust Reckoning: The Shadow Side of Force 1
🔎  Client Value Journey: Stage 1 – Aware

P.S.: When you're ready, here are more ways I can help you...