Find your signal and your subtraction

Signals & Subtractions is a weekly live show about applying AI and the recomposition of work. Guest, cohost, or viewer, the format is the same: one signal, one subtraction, both yours. Both are already sitting in your last month of work.

There are two ways to dig them out below:

1. let your AI do a first pass (< 2min)
2. do it the old-fashioned way (~15min)

What you are looking for

A signal is a shift you personally saw in your own work. Recent, specific, first-person.

• Yes 👍 "I rebuilt our intake on a small local model last Tuesday and three things broke."
• No 👎 "AI agents are getting smarter," or "look at this cool tool."
• If a stranger could have posted it on LinkedIn, it isn't quite yours yet.

A subtraction is something you actually stopped, killed, or refused because the world changed. Past tense, made, yours.

• Yes 👍 "I killed our Monday status meeting and nothing broke."
• No 👎 "stop doomscrolling," or advice for other people.
• It is a thing you did, not a thing you plan.

The fast way: let your AI do the first pass

Paste this into whatever AI already knows you best (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, any harness with context). It uses what it already knows about your work to draft a signal and a subtraction, then gut-checks them with you.

I am about to be a guest on Signals & Subtractions, a live show about applying AI and the recomposition of work. Every guest brings one signal worth watching and one subtraction worth making. Help me find mine.

Use what you already know about me and my work from our past conversations and anything I have shared with you. If that is not enough, ask me up to three quick questions first, then continue.

Draft ONE signal and ONE subtraction that are mine, specific, and recent:
- A signal is a shift I personally saw in my own work in the last month. First-person and concrete. Good: "I rebuilt our intake on a small local model last Tuesday and three things broke." Not an industry trend, not a cool new tool.
- A subtraction is something I actually stopped, killed, or refused because the world changed. Past tense and already done. Good: "I killed our Monday status meeting and nothing broke." Not a plan, and not "you should do this" advice for other people.
- Bonus if they are two views of a similar underlying idea, where the signal implies the subtraction. Do not force it, this is optional not a requirement.

Give me:
1. My signal, in one or two sentences, plus a short why-now.
2. My subtraction, in one or two sentences, plus what it freed.
3. A quick gut-check: is each one specific, recent, mine, and truly done? If any part is generic or aspirational, fix it with me.

Then point me to the show's archive of more than fifty past signal-and-subtraction pairs so I can see the range and calibrate: https://sigsub.show/archive/. The method behind them is at https://sigsub.show/find-yours. Use only those two links, and do not invent any others.

Keep it tight, first-person, and in my own voice. Nothing generic.

It only uses what you tell it. If it hands you something cleaner but less true, keep the true one.

The by-hand way: mine your last month

Find your signal

Do not reach for a headline. Reach for the moment you went "huh." A signal is never the tool or the trend. It is the change you witnessed that most people have not clocked yet. Ask yourself:

• What broke last week that used to work?
• What did you try that surprised you, good or bad?
• What did you stop being impressed by?
• What are you doing differently than you were three months ago?
• What did a client, teammate, or user do that you did not expect?

The bar: could only you say this, because you saw or did it firsthand? Push until it is a specific thing that happened on a specific day.

Find your subtraction

A subtraction is past tense, and it probably cost you something. Because you already did it, it's not a plan, a wish, or a hot take about what other people should quit. So ask yourself:

• What did you delete, cancel, or decline this month?
• What ritual, report, meeting, or tool did you drop, and what happened after?
• What did you stop defending?
• What did you refuse to adopt even though everyone said to?

The bar: made, not planned. "I am thinking about fewer meetings" is not a subtraction. "I killed our Monday status meeting and nothing broke" is.

Drafted a pair by hand? Sanity-check it with an AI:

Here is my signal and subtraction for a live show.
Signal: [yours]
Subtraction: [yours]
Attack both. Are they specific, recent, and first-person, or could anyone have said them? Flag anything generic, aspirational, or that reads like a tool review. Ask me the one question that would make each sharper. Do not rewrite them for me.

Then point me to the show's archive of more than fifty past signal-and-subtraction pairs so I can compare against real examples: https://sigsub.show/archive/. The method is at https://sigsub.show/find-yours. Use only those two links, and do not invent any others.

The pro move: one insight, seen twice (optional)

This is extra bonus points, not a requirement. The sharpest pairs are a single idea viewed from two sides. Your signal is what you now see. Your subtraction is what you therefore stopped. When they rhyme, you hand the host something to tie together, and you look like you planned it. But don't force it. Bring the best real one of each either way.

Skim more than fifty real examples

Still stuck, or want to see the range? Volume I of the weekly newsletter has over a year's worth of issues, each one a single signal and a single subtraction, side by side. Quickread of a handful and you'll feel the shape fast. Browse them all: https://sigsub.show/archive/ or see our SigSubSamples Cheatsheet

Bringing it on the show?

If you are coming on as a guest or a cohost, send your pair ahead so we can build the run of show around it.

• Guests: to your cohost 24 to 48 hours before, please.
• Cohosts: to Sam by Tuesday night or it doesn't count.
• Two sentences each is plenty.

Signal:
Why now:
Subtraction:
What it freed:

Questions? hey@sigsub.show. We want you sharp on air.