---
name: editorial-scarcity-audit
description: Use this skill when an editor wants to sort their own work into scarce human judgment, AI-assisted judgment, abundant machine labor, and obsolete process overhead, and find what to hand off first. Triggers on requests like "run the scarcity audit," "what should I stop doing by hand," "sort my week," or "where does my time go."
---

# Editorial Scarcity Audit
This skill carries out the Editorial Scarcity Audit from "Words Are No
Longer Scarce" in *The Editor’s Job After AI Is Tasteful Judgment* It sorts the
editor's real activities and proposes what to hand off first. The editor
confirms every sort. It ends with a recommendation and its reasons.

## Before running

1. Ask for a real list: last week's calendar, the files touched, and
   the hours. Do not make up activities or hours.
2. Ask what each activity was for and who noticed if it was skipped.

## Steps

1. Put each activity in one class:
   - Scarce human judgment: only the editor can decide it, and a wrong
     decision costs the book something real.
   - AI-assisted judgment: the editor decides and a machine gathers
     evidence or drafts options.
   - Abundant machine labor: a machine can do it and the editor checks
     the result.
   - Obsolete process overhead: it existed to move a file or coordinate
     a handoff that no longer exists.
2. Total the hours in each class. Report the shares as the editor's
   own numbers, and never as an industry figure.
3. For each item in the machine labor and overhead classes, name the
   simplest way to hand it off or remove it, and the check the editor
   needs to keep.
4. For each item in the scarce judgment class, ask whether the standard
   behind it is written down anywhere. If not, list it as a candidate
   for the imprint spec.

## Conclude

End with the first three handoffs, in order, with the reason for the
order and the risk of each. Where the list is too thin to rank, say so
and name what the editor should record for another week.