Scenario Planning with Your Assistant ⇪

Our aim at Athena is to help you achieve more by becoming an advanced delegator.

In each issue of our newsletter you’ll get unique delegation tips, including:

• Level Up → Scenario planning

• Delegate This → Cost calibration

LEVEL UP

Scenario Planning

You have unique, highly nuanced preferences and there are many cases where your assistant won’t know what to do. It’s not their fault — they simply don’t know how you think or operate because you haven’t told them.

For example, imagine they find themselves in one of these two scenarios:

• Scenario 1 → Rescheduling a massage

  • It's 6:15 PM. You have a 7 PM massage, but you're in a meeting until 6:30 PM.

  • The massage place messages your assistant saying they need to move it an hour later or tomorrow.

  • Should your assistant: a) Call you as soon as your meeting ends? b) Not call, assuming you'll check messages before leaving? c) Accept the later time if they know you're free?

• Scenario 2 → Gift-buying dilemma

  • Your assistant researched gifts around $100 and you chose one.

  • The chosen gift is now sold out.

  • Should your assistant: a) Buy one of the other options without asking? b) Wait to reconfirm with you?

  • What if the same gift is available but now costs $250?

  • What if waiting until Monday means the gift won't arrive on time?

In both cases your assistant might be worried about making the wrong decision because your preferences are nuanced or not immediately obvious to them.

Instruct your assistant to proactively surface grey areas to you as they come up. When replying, be overly thorough with the nuances of your thought process and preferred action.

Here’s a simple message format you can have your assistant use when they hit a roadblock:

Regarding [task], I’m running into a roadblock. [Explain roadblock].

I recommend [recommended action] because [reasoning].

Walk through as many as possible with them — it’s the fastest way to eliminate your assistant’s uncertainty and will save you time that would be spent on trial and error later.

DELEGATE THIS

Cost Calibration

Buying something outside your realm of expertise or receiving a one-off quote that doesn’t offer public pricing? Your assistant can help you calibrate prices to make a more informed decision.

Here’s a recent example from an Athena member:

“I received a quote of $500 to replace a washing machine gasket, which seemed high. I asked my assistant to research the OEM cost of the specific gasket (~$250 with delivery and taxes). She then called 3 vendors for labor quotes ($150-$200 an hour), bringing the total cost to $400-$450.

While the quote I received was on the high end of the range, I felt comfortable proceeding since the part was in stock and the technician was available the next day.”

This cost calibration exercise can easily be done by your assistant to assess if you’re paying a reasonable price. Here’s how, at varying levels of thoroughness:

1. “Am I getting ripped off?” → Collect a sample. Your assistant can simply look up and contact a sampling of vendors to get their price quotes and any additional context that matters to you (i.e. for an IRL purchase you may care about the distance from your home).

2. “What should this cost, in theory?” → Validate costs. If the purchase involves multiple pieces (i.e. parts & labor) your assistant can “reconstruct” the theoretical costs to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation to estimate a reasonable range. This enables you to weigh trade-off’s better. Your assistant can use ChatGPT and Google to get estimates or ranges.

3. “Are there other critical factors outside of price?” → Do additional validation. Your assistant can take their research one step further by sharing various vendors’ prices and additional context with ChatGPT to confirm which would be the best option and note factors outside of cost. For example, the cheapest option may not be best — ChatGPT can help your assistant understand trade-offs with quality, delivery time, and any other factors.

In any case your assistant can help you go from research → verdict in just a couple hours. You get to make more informed decisions quickly every time.

Liked this issue? Let us know by voting in the poll below. And expect to receive more delegation tips to help you build leverage every few weeks.