The Thinking Loop

A four phase field kit for using AI as a partner in your reasoning, not a replacement for it. Move through one phase at a time. The thinking is the point.

Companion to the blog post The Thinking Is the Point. Work it solo, with your team, or with your students.

1. Name the Skip

Pick one task you currently hand straight to AI, prompt in, answer out. Name the thinking you are skipping. You cannot protect a step you have not noticed.

Your task:

The thinking I am skipping:

2. Build Before You Borrow

Do the first pass of reasoning yourself, before you open the tool. Sketch your own structure. Rough is fine. The point is that the shape came from you.

• Write the three points you would make if the tool did not exist.
• Circle the one you are least sure about. That is where you will need AI most.

3. Run the Loop

Now bring AI in, but as a partner in a loop, not a vending machine. Move through the steps in order. Check each as you go.

4. Defend It Out Loud

Produce the final output, and next to it, a short account of how you built it and where it could still be wrong. If you can defend it in a room of skeptics, the thinking stayed with you.

How I built this and where it could be wrong:

Shareable move: teach one person the loop this week, or post your before and after in the community. Teaching is the fastest way to prove you own the thinking.