Writing up the minutes
A school governor
Turning two pages of scribbled notes from a ninety-minute meeting into minutes that can be circulated.
- Read the notes back and work out what you actually meant by the third bullet10 min
- Write the minutes up from the notes50 min
- Read it through once and tidy the wording15 min
Of which, checking: 15 min
- Type up the notes so they can be pasted in, removing the two names that should not leave the room12 min
- Ask for minutes, read the draft, ask again with a note about the house style8 min
- Check every action point and every attribution against the notes, line by line20 min
- Rewrite the two paragraphs that were confidently wrong about what was decided12 min
Of which, checking: 20 min
23 minutes quicker with the tool, once the checking is counted.
What the checking found
- Caught
An action point that nobody had agreed to, assigned to a governor who had not spoken on that item.
Checking each action against the notes. It reads exactly like the other action points, which is why it needed checking against the source rather than reading for plausibility.
- Caught
A decision recorded as unanimous when the notes say two people abstained.
Same pass. The draft smoothed over the detail rather than inventing it, which is the more common and harder-to-spot version.
Twenty-three minutes quicker, and the twenty minutes of checking is the part that made it safe rather than the part that slowed it down. Skip that and it is faster still, and the minutes contain an action point nobody agreed to.
Challenging a council tax band
Somebody who thinks their band is wrong
Finding out whether the band can be challenged, how, and by when.
- Search for it and land on the government page about council tax bands3 min
- Read the page, which says who to contact and what evidence helps12 min
- Look up two neighbouring properties on the public banding list10 min
No checking in this route
- Ask what the process is and read a clear, confident answer4 min
- Check the process against the government page, because it mentioned a deadline15 min
- Work out that the deadline it gave applies to a different thing entirely, and start again10 min
- Read the government page properly, which is where you would have started12 min
Of which, checking: 15 min
16 minutes slower with the tool, once the checking is counted.
What the checking found
- Caught
A six-month deadline for challenging a band, presented without hedging. It exists, but it applies to new owners rather than to somebody who has lived there for years.
Only because the deadline sounded alarming enough to check. A reader who found it reassuring rather than alarming would have accepted it.
- Missed at the time
It named the wrong body for Scotland, which has a separate assessor system.
Not caught at the time. It surfaced a fortnight later when somebody in the same street mentioned the actual office they had dealt with.
Sixteen minutes slower, and it ended at the same government page the search would have found in three. Questions whose answer is one authoritative page are the ones these tools add the most time to, because the answer arrives faster and then has to be checked against the page anyway.
Writing up a quote
A builder working on her own
Turning measurements and a materials list into a quote a customer can read and sign.
- Find the last similar quote and copy the structure8 min
- Write the scope of works out properly35 min
- Check the arithmetic on the materials10 min
Of which, checking: 10 min
- Paste the measurements and the list, with the customer's name and address left out5 min
- Ask for a scope of works in plain English, and read it6 min
- Check every figure against your own list and redo the totals yourself12 min
- Add the two conditions it left out, which you knew to look for because you always add them5 min
Of which, checking: 12 min
25 minutes quicker with the tool, once the checking is counted.
What the checking found
- Caught
Nothing invented. The figures matched, because they were figures it had been given rather than figures it had to know.
Checked anyway, which is the point. It came back clean, and that is a result worth recording rather than a reason to stop checking next time.
Twenty-five minutes quicker and nothing was wrong with it. This is the shape of job where these tools genuinely earn their keep: rearranging information you supplied into a form you can check, rather than supplying information you do not have.
Getting through a tenancy agreement
Somebody renting a flat
Understanding what a forty-page agreement actually commits them to before signing it.
- Read the whole thing, slowly, twice for the parts that do not parse75 min
- Look up four terms you have never seen before20 min
- Write down the five things you want to ask about10 min
No checking in this route
- Paste it in, in two halves, because it will not take the whole thing at once8 min
- Read the summary, which is clear and well organised10 min
- Find each summarised clause in the original and read it50 min
- Read the sections it skipped over, once you notice which they are30 min
Of which, checking: 50 min
7 minutes quicker with the tool, once the checking is counted.
What the checking found
- Caught
A clause about the deposit being withheld for 'reasonable cleaning' was summarised as standard, when the definition attached to it three pages later was anything but.
Found by reading each clause in the original rather than the summary of it. The summary was accurate about the clause and silent about the definition.
- Missed at the time
The middle of the second half was summarised far more thinly than the rest, including a break clause.
Not noticed until a friend asked whether there was a break clause. Long documents get thinner attention in the middle, and it does not announce that it has done this.
Seven minutes apart, and the AI route felt enormously faster for the first eighteen of them. That gap between how fast it feels and how long it takes is the thing to watch, because the feeling is what tempts people to stop before the checking.
Translating a leaflet
A volunteer at a community centre
Getting a one-page leaflet about a food bank into Polish, for people who will act on what it says.
Asking somebody who speaks it
70 min- Ask the Polish-speaking volunteer whether she has time this week5 min
- Wait until Thursday, when she is next in40 min
- She translates it while you make the tea25 min
No checking in this route
- Ask for a translation and get one back immediately3 min
- Ask her to read it over, because you are not going to put out something you cannot read5 min
- Wait until Thursday anyway40 min
- She reads it and fixes the register, which was formal to the point of being off-putting15 min
Of which, checking: 15 min
7 minutes quicker with the tool, once the checking is counted.
What the checking found
- Caught
The tone was that of an official letter rather than an offer of help, which for this leaflet is close to the opposite of what was wanted.
The volunteer read it. There is no way to catch this without somebody who speaks the language, and no confidence score would have flagged it.
- Caught
The opening hours were translated correctly but reformatted into a convention that reads as a date range rather than a time.
Same reading. It was the sort of error that survives every check except a fluent one.
Seven minutes quicker, and the whole saving came out of her time rather than yours. Worth knowing before deciding this is a job the tool does: the work moved, it did not disappear, and she still had to be there on Thursday.
