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A free guide by Mariah Brunner ↗ INSTAGRAM ↗ TIKTOK

The 60/30/10
AI Framework

If you’re new to AI and feel like you’re barely scratching the surface, this is the simplest way I’ve found to fix it. Plus my full beginner setup.

Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot, calls it the 60/30/10 rule. Split how you use AI into three parts: mostly the things that already work, some time making them better and a little time trying new things.

The 3 Parts

01

60% Repetition

The prompts and workflows that have proven they work for you. The everyday stuff that saves you time.

  • Summarizing an article into 5 bullets
  • Drafting email replies you edit before sending
  • Pulling the key points out of a meeting transcript

This is the biggest bucket because it compounds. Saving 20 minutes a day adds up to more than 100 hours a year.

02

30% Iteration

Same tasks, better results. You’re not changing what you ask AI to do. You’re refining how you ask.

  • Adding a checklist for "good" to a prompt you use every week
  • Adding "before you answer, find one weakness in my plan"
  • Moving a prompt into a Project so it always has your context
Improve A Prompt I Use
Here's a prompt I use all the time: [paste your prompt] And here's a result I got that wasn't quite right: [paste the result] Tell me what's missing from my prompt, then rewrite it so I get a better result every time. Keep it short and in plain English.

03

10% Experimentation

Try things you’re not sure will work. Most will flop, and that’s the point. The ones that work join your toolkit. The ones that don’t show you where AI’s limits are.

  • "What if Claude reviewed my last 3 months of decisions and told me what patterns I keep repeating?"
  • "What if Claude built me a small app for a problem I deal with every week?"
Audit Your Split
  1. Open your history. Look at the last 20 things you used AI for.
  2. Tag each one. R for repetition, I for iteration, E for experimentation.
  3. Compare to 60/30/10. All R and no I means you’re stuck. All E and no R means you’re chasing new things without saving any time.
  4. Book the missing part. 30 minutes a week to improve one prompt, or 30 minutes to try one wild idea.
My Beginner AI Setup

This is the setup I’d give anyone starting out. It makes the 60% easy, because your best prompts and context are always ready.

01

Set up Claude once

Make a Project, tell Claude who you are, and add your writing samples and rules. It takes about 10 minutes. Here’s my 5-step setup.

02

Save your repeat prompts

Every time a prompt works, save it to a note called "My Prompts." That note becomes your 60%.

03

Turn your favorite into a Skill

Once a prompt is a keeper, Claude can turn it into a Skill that runs whenever you need it. How to build one.

04

Learn the basics properly

Anthropic’s free courses are the best place to start. Here are the 3 I recommend.