The AmplifierYour path · Dependent · Band 1
The Drifter
You are recently in the loop — a few months, maybe a few quarters.
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In brief
Dependent Dependent · Band 1. You are recently in the loop — a few months, maybe a few quarters. You can still feel the small discomfort when you ship work you cannot fully explain. You suspect, in some honest part of yourself, that you are leaning on the tools more than is good for you. You may have noticed yourself avoiding situations where you would have to defend your work in detail, or feeling slightly hollow at the end of a productive day in a way you cannot name.
The work
This is the easiest band to move out of. The muscle has not yet atrophied; you still know what good thinking feels like and have been skipping it because the tool was faster. Recovery is deliberate practice over weeks, not months. Pick one project. Run it through the framework from Step 1. Define your end state alone, in writing, before you touch a tool. Map your own flow before asking AI for input. Define success criteria before you see any output. The first time will feel slow. The slowness is the muscle returning.
Risks to watch
Two or three of these will appear on your result, chosen for your pattern of answers. Work on one at a time.
Calling yourself recovered after one project
Do not. The pattern needs to hold across three or four projects of real complexity before the new posture is settled.
Slipping back under pressure
You will. Notice the slip; do not punish yourself. Use the framework on the next piece of work, not retroactively on the one you just shipped.
Feeling slower than your peers
You are, briefly. The slowness is real and temporary. It is the cost of building the muscle they have not yet noticed they need.
Your roadmap
Run one project through all eight steps in the next two weeks — the First Fortnight is built for exactly this. Then a second. Retake the AMQ in six months.
Read: Chapters 5, 7 and 8.
Start the roadmap.
The placement is the diagnosis. The work is everything that happens after.