Routing means matching the job to the Copilot surface and the size of the ask. Chat is for thinking and drafts. Word, PowerPoint, and Excel are for work that already lives in a file. Teams is for the meeting you were actually in.
Surface, context, finish line.
Context hygiene: paste the brief, not the archive. Huge pastes and retries without a new instruction are spin fuel.
Finish line: write “done when” before you start. If you cannot, you are not ready to open Copilot.
Core principles
- Fix 1 — surface: name one task you will move out of Chat into the app that holds the file.
- Fix 2 — context: one rule for what you paste (and what you leave out).
- Fix 3 — finish line: a one-line “done when” you will write before long sessions.
- Do not pick seven fixes. Three you will actually try next week.
Related: Practical AI Experimentation — test a fix on purpose
Check yourself
Which routing change is in scope for this lesson?
The audit is about how you use the Copilot you already have. New vendors wait until the shape is clear.
Do this in Copilot
Write three routing fixes in one sentence each. Put them under the inventory.
Edit the three until they match your actual week. Discard any that require admin rights you do not have.
Propose three fixes
Based on this shipped-vs-spin readout: [PASTE LESSON 3 OUTPUT]. Propose exactly three routing fixes I can try next week in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Each fix must be one of: change Copilot surface, change what I paste, or write a done-when line before I start. For each: the situation, the new habit, and how I will know it worked. No new tools. No “be more mindful.”
Did you run this in Copilot? Mark complete when you have tried it.
RecordedNavigate: press j for next lesson,k for previous.