By Anna Rippon, creator of That Clicked
I didn’t set out to build a method.
I set out to figure out AI — for myself, the hard way, in my fifties, with no background in technology and no patience for explanations that assumed I already knew things I didn’t.
What follows is what I learned. Not principles I read somewhere else. Patterns I noticed while working through the same confusion most experienced professionals are working through right now.
I’ve named them because named things are easier to use. If you find them useful, that’s enough.
— Anna
THE ANNA CONFIDENCE CURVE
Most professionals move through five stages when learning AI. The stages aren’t rigid — you can move between them, return to earlier ones, or skip ahead in some areas while staying back in others.
But knowing which stage you’re at tends to make the next step feel less daunting.
STAGE 1 — FEAR
AI feels threatening. The coverage is overwhelming. The assumption is that everyone else already understands something you don't. You're nodding along in meetings and saying nothing.
STAGE 2 — CURIOSITY
Something shifted. You've seen something useful — a colleague's summary, a demo, an article that actually made sense. You're not convinced yet, but you're no longer dismissing it.
STAGE 3 — EXPERIMENTATION
You've tried something. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. The tool is real rather than abstract. You're starting to understand what it's actually for.
STAGE 4 — COMFORT
You have two or three things AI reliably helps you with. You don't think about it much. You just use it, the same way you use a calculator or a search engine.
STAGE 5 — CONFIDENCE
AI is part of how you work. You can talk about it with colleagues. You have opinions about which tools suit which tasks. You're not an expert — but you don't need to be.
“Most people who feel left behind are at stage one or two. The gap between stage two and stage three is smaller than it looks. It’s usually just one first real attempt standing between them.”
— Anna
If this is where you are → Why AI Feels Overwhelming
THE FIRST CLICK METHOD
The hardest part of learning any new tool is usually the first interaction — not the ongoing use.
Most AI guidance skips this and goes straight to technique. But technique isn’t the barrier. The decision to start is the barrier.
Here’s the method that gets past it:
SEE
Find one specific task in your working week that involves writing, summarising, or researching. Not a theoretical task. An actual thing you have to do this week.
TRY
Open ChatGPT or Copilot. Describe the task in plain English, as you'd explain it to a smart colleague who doesn't know your context. Don't overthink the wording. Just try.
READ
Read what comes back. All of it. Don't just look for the answer you expected — notice what the tool understood, what it missed, and what surprised you.
ADAPT
Use what's useful. Ignore what isn't. If the output isn't quite right, adjust the description and try again. That's the entire learning process.
“I called it the First Click Method because the click is the hardest part. Not the prompting, not the evaluation, not the learning — the decision to try at all. Everything after that first click is just iteration. And iteration is something every experienced professional already knows how to do.”
— Anna
Ready to try → Start Here
THE PRACTICE WITH ANNA METHOD
Most AI anxiety comes not from the technology but from the imagined presence of an audience.
The fear of looking foolish stops more experienced professionals from starting than any technical barrier.
The Practice With Anna Method is built on three conditions that remove that fear entirely.
NO AUDIENCE
Use a personal account on a personal device. Your attempts are private. Nobody is watching, evaluating, or comparing your output to anyone else's.
NO PRESSURE
There is no deadline on your first attempts. There is no performance standard. The goal is familiarity, not perfection.
NO MISTAKES
In AI, there are no mistakes — only prompts that produce more or less useful responses. A bad response is not a failure. It's a signal to try again with different wording.
“Every module in ThatClicked includes a built-in practice tool built on exactly these three conditions. Your first attempt isn’t in front of your team. It’s here, private, with no consequences for getting it wrong. Confidence doesn’t come from watching someone else. It comes from doing — but the doing needs to feel safe before it can build anything.”
— Anna
On practising safely → How to Practise AI Without Feeling Stupid
THE AI RELEVANCE LADDER
A four-level model for understanding how professionals typically progress with AI — and why the goal is not the top rung.
LEVEL 1 — AWARENESS
You understand what AI is and what the main tools do. You can talk about it confidently in meetings.
LEVEL 2 — USEFULNESS
AI saves you time on specific tasks. You have two or three things it reliably helps with. You use it occasionally and it delivers.
LEVEL 3 — WORKFLOW
AI is part of how you work every day. You reach for it without deciding to — like a calculator or a search engine.
LEVEL 4 — ADVANTAGE
AI genuinely extends what you can produce. You use it to prepare better, communicate more clearly, and think through problems more thoroughly than you could alone.
“Most people who think they need to reach level four actually need level two. Level two is where the time savings happen. Level two is where the confidence comes from. The ladder isn’t about ambition. It’s about knowing where you are — and knowing that where you are is probably already useful.”
— Anna
How much do you need to learn → How Much AI Do I Actually Need?
THE PLAIN ENGLISH TEST
One rule that runs through everything ThatClicked produces:
If you cannot explain it in plain English, slow down.
This rule works in three directions:
TO AI RESPONSES
If an AI gives you an answer you don't understand, don't assume the fault is yours. Ask it to explain again, more simply.
TO AI GUIDANCE
If an article or course about AI requires you to already understand AI to follow it, it has failed. Good guidance starts where you are, not where the author is.
TO YOUR OWN USE
If you can't explain to a colleague what you used AI for and what it produced, you probably haven't understood the output well enough to use it safely. Slow down. Read it again.
“This is the principle ThatClicked is built on. Not because plain English is a dumbed-down version of the real thing — but because if something is genuinely understood, it can be explained simply. If I can’t explain something in plain English, I don’t put it in the platform.”
— Anna
These five frameworks are how I think about AI confidence — and how ThatClicked is built.
They’re not the only way to approach this. But they’re mine, and they work.
If you want to put them into practice, the first two lessons are free. No account needed. No jargon.
— Anna
That Clicked is a plain-English AI confidence platform for professionals over 50.