Quick fixes AG-C002
Stop hitting the limit mid-task
Shared methods · A shared method; linked tool guides explain the exact steps.
This page covers tools outside your selection. You can still read it. Find matching guides
Running dry in the middle of real work is a planning failure with a planning fix: know the window, spend it deliberately, park state before the cliff.
The limit keeps interrupting me mid-task? Here's the quick fix ↓ — the why sits right below it.
Quick fix: Stop hitting the limit mid-task
Instead of Work until the limit interrupts you, lose the thread, wait, start over.
Try Check what is left before starting something big. Near the edge, spend the last stretch writing a handover (what is done, what is next, what the open questions are) so the next window starts warm instead of from zero.
Why this works
The limit is predictable; treating it as a surprise is the whole failure. Hitting it mid-task costs more than the wait, because the conversation's working state evaporates with the interruption and rebuilding it spends the new window on re-explaining. A two-minute handover note before the cliff converts dead quota into a running start. Upstream of that, the big spenders are known: flagship models on routine work, and single giant conversations where several small ones would have been cheaper and clearer.
When this applies
The limit has interrupted real work more than once this week, and each time it cost you the thread, and a restart.
Template
When the window is nearly spent:
Before we stop: summarise where we are (done, in progress, next steps, open questions) as a note I can paste to continue in a fresh session.
Go deeper
What the windows actually are, per plan: usage limits. What to do the moment it happens: you hit a limit, now what. The disciplined version for heavy users is quota discipline, and which plan covers when the honest fix is a different plan rather than better rationing.
Improve next
- The big model is not for everything
A smaller model would handle this — save the big one for hard work.
- One request, five tasks
This may work better as several steps.
Something wrong with this page?
Say what you expected and what you got. That is usually the shortest route to a correction, and it goes on the public issue tracker so the fix is visible.