Right tool, written plan
When a chat is enough
If you'll read the answer and act yourself, a normal chat is simpler, cheaper and easier to check. Agents earn their keep when there are many steps across tools, or the job repeats. Asking an agent to do a one-off question is like hiring a removal van to carry a letter.
When simple automation is better
Fixed, rule-based jobs (forward emails from this sender to that folder, back up this folder every night) are better done by ordinary rules and automations. They do exactly the same thing every time and can't be talked into anything. Use AI where judgement or reading is needed, not where a filter would do.
When to do it yourself
Anything where being wrong would hurt someone, cost serious money or can't be undone. Anything you need to understand deeply, where doing it is how you learn. Personal messages where the effort is the point. And anything you wouldn't be able to explain if asked why it happened.
Your one-page plan
Pick one job. Write: the brief (goal, context, limits, finish line, output); the access it needs and nothing more; which actions need your approval; the budget and step limit; how you'll stop it; and how you'll check the first three runs. Put it in your task register. That page is the difference between delegating and hoping.
Which task would you be most relieved to hand off? Which would you be most nervous about? Are they the same task?