📚 Get AI to Organize Your Weekly Tasks

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Welcome back to our AI education series!

Today, we're tackling a familiar challenge at AI Academy: managing an overwhelming task list.

The Problem

As a small team, our to-do list is constantly full of tasks. From preparing webinars and running cohort courses to conducting marketing campaigns, preparing clients’ proposals, and obviously writing these newsletters, the tasks pile up quickly. 😰 

We bet you run into similar situations.

We needed a way to prioritize effectively and efficiently. AI becomes our solution.

We'll show you how we use ChatGPT to prioritize tasks and boost our productivity.

How We Use ChatGPT to Prioritize Tasks

We often struggle with prioritizing our many tasks. Therefore, we've been experimenting with using ChatGPT to help us sort through our to-do lists and give us a fresh perspective on our workload. Here's the process we've been using.

Step 1: Set Up the AI Assistant

We start by giving ChatGPT some context about what we need. Here's the prompt we typically use:

You are an experienced project manager helping prioritize tasks for [COMPANY]. Today is [DATE].
Help me prioritize my tasks for the week. 
Analyze each task based on urgency, importance, and estimated effort. Then, provide a prioritized list with brief explanations for each task's placement.
Present the prioritized tasks in a numbered list, including the calculated priority scores.
Here are my tasks for the week:
[TASK LIST]

Step 2: Analyze ChatGPT's Response

ChatGPT then provides a prioritized list with explanations. Something that looks like this:

We review this output, considering our unique context and any additional factors ChatGPT might not be aware of.

Step 3: Refine and Adjust

If needed, we follow up with additional prompts to refine the prioritization. For example:

"Adjust the priority of task #3 which has become highly important."
or
"We just learned this needs to be done by Friday. How does this change our priorities?"

Step 4: Create Action Plan

Finally, we use ChatGPT to help create a daily action plan based on the prioritized list:

You are a productivity coach helping me plan my week.
Use the final prioritized task list we developed to create a daily action plan.
Allocate tasks across the week, considering the priority and estimated effort for each. Suggest time blocks for focused work on each task. I prefer tackling complex tasks in the [DAY TIME] when I'm most focused.

By following this process, we have improved our ability to manage our diverse workload efficiently. The AI's objective analysis helps us see our tasks from a new perspective, often highlighting priorities we might have overlooked.

Your Turn

Now that you've seen how we use ChatGPT to help prioritize our tasks at AI Academy, why not give it a try yourself? Here's a simple exercise to get you started:

1. Make Your List: Write down 5-7 tasks you need to accomplish this or next week. Include a mix of urgent, important, and less critical tasks.

2. Craft Your Prompt: Use our prompt as a template, but feel free to modify it based on your specific needs. Remember to include:

   • Context about your work situation

   • Your task list

   • Any personal preferences (like when you're most productive)

   • How you want the prioritized list presented

3. Review and Reflect: Look at the prioritized list ChatGPT provides. Does it align with your intuitions?

4. Adjust and Act: Based on ChatGPT's suggestions and your own insights, create your action plan for the week.

Remember, AI is a tool to assist you, not to make decisions for you. Use its output as a starting point for your own critical thinking about task management.

Want to get even more practical? Explore hands-on AI learning with AI Academy:

• Generative AI Project Bootcamp: Create AI prototypes to solve real business problems.

• Corporate Training: Tailored AI training for your team.

• Practical Introduction to ChatGPT: Free course on effectively using ChatGPT.

We'll be back with more AI tips soon!