What "Knowing Enough" Actually Looks Like (A Short List)

Yesterday I told you that you don’t need to know everything about AI — you need to know enough.

And if you’re anything like the women I work with, your very next thought was: okay, but how much is enough?

Fair question. Vague permission isn’t useful — it just trades one anxiety (“I’m behind”) for another (“but how behind am I?”). So today, let’s get specific. Here’s my honest take on what “enough” looks like for a woman running her own business — and just as important, the list of things you can happily ignore.

The Short List: What’s Actually Worth Knowing

1. How to have a conversation with one AI tool. Not five. One. Claude, ChatGPT — pick one and get comfortable talking to it. Asking follow-up questions. Telling it when it missed. That’s the foundational skill, and it’s a conversation skill, not a technical one. You already have it.

2. How to give it context. The difference between a useless answer and a great one is rarely the tool — it’s what you told it before you asked. Who you are, who it’s for, what you’ve already tried. If you can brief a new assistant on her first day, you can do this.

3. How to judge what comes back. This is where your decades of expertise become a superpower. AI produces; you decide. Knowing your field well enough to say “that’s not right” or “that’s not me” is the most valuable AI skill there is — and you’ve been building it your whole career.

4. What job you’re doing right now. Regular readers know this one already ( https://carenglasser.com/blog/stop-asking-what-tool-should-i-get ). When you know the job, the right tool becomes obvious — and everything that doesn’t serve the job becomes ignorable.

That’s it. That’s the list. Everything else is elective.

The Long List: What You Can Happily Ignore

How the models are trained. What “parameters” means. Which company released what this week. Coding. Building websites. APIs, agents, automations — until you have a specific job that needs one. The discourse about what AI will mean for humanity. (Interesting? Sure. Required for your Tuesday? No.)

Notice something about this list: it’s basically infinite. That’s exactly why “keeping up” feels impossible — the long list grows daily. But you were never supposed to be carrying it. Let it go, guilt-free. If something on it ever becomes something you need, it will make itself known — through a job you’re trying to do. And when that happens, I’ll be here, having already made the mistakes. 😄

Enough Is a Moving Target — and That’s Fine

One more honest thing: “enough” isn’t a graduation. It will shift as your business shifts. New offer? Maybe “enough” grows a little. Simplifying this year? Maybe it shrinks.

That’s not a flaw in the system. That IS the system. You don’t keep up with the field — you keep up with your needs. The field is big tech’s problem.

You’ve got the short list. Four things, all of them built on skills you already have. That’s not a mountain. That’s a long afternoon.

You don’t have to do everything. You just have to start. 💛

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