The Scope Finder
How to widen a problem without blurring it, and where AI actually helps
"I need to stop procrastinating" isn't the problem. Four questions in, you'll find one you can actually solve.
Problem-finding lives between two failures: tunnel vision (solving the first tidy problem, which is usually the wrong one) and fog (widening forever until you can't act). Neither is a skill. The rhythm between them is.
AI is unusually good on the expand stroke: stakeholders, framings, borrowed metaphors, ten questions you weren't asking. Use it there without shame.
AI is quietly useless on the contract stroke: the relevance filter, the "so what" test, the commit. That call has to be yours, it's judgement, and it's what turns scope into focus.
AI expands the space of questions; you contract it to the one worth answering.
Try it yourself
Try the widget: student-life situations where you run the expand stroke, then do the harder contract stroke yourself.
Want to see how we are applying this insight — visit www.leapingnow.com
This handout is part of the free AI-Confidence course — six modules, interactive exercises, and a licence check in about 70 minutes.