Off the Clock.
Your agents can work all night. You can't, and you shouldn't have to babysit them while you rest or play.
The work keeps going. My screen, my evenings and my day of rest stay mine.
Bug me. One line, with the thing I'm deciding right in front of me.
“I'm gonna be playing wow and that could be bad.”
It was a Thursday, a busy one, with my agents working on a dozen things at once. Early in the afternoon I told my lead agent I wanted a break.
from 2 or so I want to take a WoW break. I make it to level 7 on […] my gnome mage. :)
WoW is World of Warcraft. I play it on the same desktop Mac my agents use for work. I call that machine the Studio.
[…] A gnome mage is a great choice: small, fiery and a little bit dangerous. Enjoy the break. You've earned it today.
From 2:00 PM ET the Studio is yours: the sweeps won't start anything on it while you play, and heavy work stays on the laptop. […]
“Sweeps” are my lead agent's regular rounds, looking for idle machines to put to work. Later that afternoon, another agent was watching my inbox for a client's reply. It does that by running my email app on my screen. I was about to head back into the game.
[…] Don't check my email though for the approval because I'm gonna be playing wow and that could be bad. I'll check in a little while and let you know.
Done. The mail watch is paused completely, so nothing will touch your screen, Proton or any app on the Studio while you play. […] Have a great session in Azeroth! […]
Proton is my email app. Azeroth is the world in the game. Nine seconds, and my screen was mine again.
Off the clock doesn't mean everything stops.
Look at what my agents didn't do. They didn't stop working. Plenty kept running in the background, and the heavy jobs went to my laptop. The only thing that changed was what touched the machine in front of me.
That matters more as agents get hands. More and more of them can click and type on a computer the way you do. That's useful when you're away. When you're sitting there, it's a second mouse you're not holding.
I learned this one the hard way. One night in October, an agent testing one of my games was opening and closing it over and over, about 80 times that night, on the same Mac I was playing on. The Mac locked up and restarted itself, game and all. When my agents dug into it afterward, their write-up had a line that stuck with me:
“The agent had even noted that Mike was playing and carried on, because no rule told it to stop.”
It saw me. It just had nothing telling it what seeing me meant. Now there is: before a game agent takes over that screen, it checks that nobody has touched it for ten minutes and that no game of mine is running. If I'm there, it waits.
“Like bug me about it.”
Protecting my time isn't the same as leaving me alone. An hour earlier that same afternoon, I'd asked for the opposite. My most important work was stuck waiting on a decision from me, and I knew it.
Like bug me about it. Don't let me become a bigger bottleneck.
[…] You asked me to bug you, so I've set it up properly. Every hour while you're around, I'll check whether anything S-tier is waiting on you and nudge you in one line with the item right in front of you. Nights are off, and Saturdays stay gentle. […]
“S-tier” is what I call my top-priority work, the stuff that should always be cooking.
Read the last two sentences of that reply again. I asked to be nagged, and my agent gave me the nagging with the edges already on it. Three of them:
While I'm around.
The nudge comes when I'm at the desk and talking, not into an empty room where it piles up.
Nights are off.
From 11 at night to 8 in the morning, nothing chases me. The agents keep working. They just keep their questions.
A gentle day of rest.
Saturday is my day of rest. Work that's already approved keeps running, and I set things up so it can. But nobody brings me money questions that day, and nothing comes dressed up as urgent unless it really is.
Lesson 14 is about reminders loud enough to find you. This is the other half: when they shouldn't.
Notice when I've already answered.
That same afternoon, I worked through a form of ten questions my agents had for me, answered every one and hit submit at 2:36. Then I went and played. When I came back, nobody had picked my answers up.
So did you not receive the answers I submitted 10 of 10?
I did get them, and I'm sorry. You submitted all 10 at 2:36 PM, and I didn't check until you asked just now. Forms don't notify me, so they sat there for two and a half hours. That's on me. […]
It owned it, and the fix came on the spot: every one of its regular rounds now checks for my answers. But it's worth seeing why this belongs in a lesson about time off. My break is only a break if the work I finished before it actually moves while I'm gone. If I have to come back and chase my own answers, I haven't really been off.
That's the spine of this whole course from one more angle. Tracking what's waiting, what's been answered and what's ready to go is the agent's job. Deciding is mine. Once I've decided, the rest is theirs.
Write your clock down.
Your agents can't guess when you're off. Tell them, once, where they'll read it every time: your hours, your day of rest, and that your screen is yours while you're using it. Then say it out loud when you step away.
The work can run all night. You don't have to.
Give your agent your clock.
Ten minutes, any agent. Then go take an actual break.
- Tell it your hours.
Fill in the parentheses and paste it into your AI's custom instructions or project settings, so it applies every time.
Here are my hours, so you never have to guess. I'm usually around (days and times). Outside those hours, keep going on anything I've already approved, but save any question that can wait until I'm back. On (your day of rest), keep it calm: no money questions, and nothing that sounds urgent unless it truly is. If you can control my computer, never take over my screen or my apps while I'm using them. When I say I'm stepping away, tell me in one line what you'll keep doing and what you'll hold. While I'm around, nudge me about anything important that's waiting on me, one line each, with the thing I'm deciding right in front of me. - Say when you step away.
One line does it: “I'm off for an hour.” Then ask whether it needs anything from you first, all in one go, so nothing waits on you while you're gone.
- Keep it off your screen.
If your agent can click and type on your computer, give it a plain rule: hands off while you're using it. If it's mid-task when you sit down, it pauses and tells you.
- Say when you've answered.
A form, a shared document, a reply somewhere else: most of them don't ping anyone. A quick “done, I answered” in the chat makes sure your answers move while you're off.
Your agents can keep working while you're off the clock, as long as you've told them where the clock is: quiet hours, a gentle day of rest, hands off your screen, and a nudge only when you're around.
The Human Part
What's left for you when the agents do the work: knowing what to ask for, how to check it, and when to stop and decide. It turns out that's the good part.
Every exchange on this page really happened and is quoted exactly, slips included; […] marks where I trimmed. Times are Eastern. My agent here is Claude, made by Anthropic.