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Not always easy to break down

But the over­sized tasks still need to get done. I’ve known for a long time that a good way to get start­ed on some­thing I’m putting off is to break it down into small­er steps. Still, I some­times pro­cras­ti­nate, because even the act of break­ing it down can feel like work in itself.

You know what? You can get help break­ing it down from an AI ser­vice! I’ve test­ed it on sev­er­al tasks, and it works well.

My com­pli­cat­ed, enor­mous task

For exam­ple, I’ve had the task ​“Set SEO set­tings on the online cours­es” sit­ting on my list for way too long. It’s got­ten a bit yel­lowed and worn around the edges from sit­ting there so long. Every time I saw it, I thought, ​“I should do that.” But it nev­er got done.

So, I turned to my ever-help­ful col­league Chat­G­PT and wrote: ​“I have a to-do task that I keep putting off again and again. It says ​‘Set SEO set­tings on the online cours­es.’ Can you help me break it down into small­er steps so I can get start­ed?”. Chat­G­PT replied ​“Absolute­ly!” and instant­ly gave me sev­en small­er steps I could take one at a time. It imme­di­ate­ly felt more doable, and I felt like get­ting start­ed right away.

Do this

Are you also tired of pro­cras­ti­nat­ing on cer­tain tasks? Get help from AI too.

1. In the AI chat of your choice (Chat­G­PT, Microsoft Copi­lot, or anoth­er), phrase your ques­tion as if you were talk­ing to a help­ful col­league (who’s not over­ly sensitive).
2. If the answers you get aren’t good enough, ask fol­low-up ques­tions and be amazed that the AI under­stands you’re rais­ing the bar – and deliv­ers accordingly.
3. When you notice it’s more tempt­ing to get start­ed on the task than to keep putting it off, you’re ready. Thank it for the help and get to work

A lighter workload

If you use AI when you tend to pro­cras­ti­nate on a task, you’ll get start­ed faster. It even becomes less of a bur­den than if you did the break­down your­self. Instead of feel­ing increas­ing­ly weighed down by tasks hang­ing over you, you gain momen­tum, and your work­load becomes sig­nif­i­cant­ly lighter.

What about you?

What’s the last thing you used AI for? Tell me, because I want all the help I can get in my job – whether it’s from oth­er peo­ple or from intel­li­gent sys­tems that glad­ly do what I don’t feel like doing. Please write to me and share.

(Look­ing for more pro­duc­tive ways to use AI? Learn more here about how to turn unread newslet­ters into AI pod­casts!)