The blog

Do you find your­self pro­cras­ti­nat­ing on tasks you need to do? I would be sur­prised if you answered ​“No” to that ques­tion, as most of us do — at least some of the time. One com­mon rea­son for pro­cras­ti­na­tion may be that you have defined the task as too large or too unclear.

When you have many tasks to choose from, it is tempt­ing to grab some­thing short or easy instead of the dif­fuse large task — not least because you can tick it off soon.

Not always easy to divide

How­ev­er, the larg­er tasks still need to be done. I have long known that a good way to get start­ed on what I’m pro­cras­ti­nat­ing on is to break it down into small­er steps. Yet, it may still hap­pen that I pro­cras­ti­nate, because it feels labo­ri­ous to do the break­down itself.

But, you know what? You can get help with the break­down from an AI ser­vice! I have test­ed it with sev­er­al tasks and it works fine.

My com­pli­cat­ed, large task

For exam­ple, I have had the task ​“Set SEO set­tings for the online cours­es” on my list for too long. It has yel­lowed a bit and become a lit­tle bat­tered, because it has been sit­ting there and sit­ting there for so long. Every time I’ve seen it, I’ve thought, ​“I ought to just do it.” But, it has­n’t happened.

So, I turned to my ever-will­ing col­league Chat­G­PT and wrote: ​“I have a to-do task that I keep pro­cras­ti­nat­ing on, which reads ​‘Set SEO set­tings for the online cours­es’. Can you help me break it down into small­er steps, so I can get start­ed on it?” Chat­G­PT answered ​“Absolute­ly!” and gave me sev­en small­er steps in a jiffy that I can take one by one. It imme­di­ate­ly felt more doable and I felt like get­ting start­ed right away.

Here’s how

Are you also tired of pro­cras­ti­nat­ing on some tasks? Use Chat­G­PT to help you too.

1. If you don’t already have one, cre­ate an account on Chat­G­PT.
2. Phrase your ques­tion as if you were talk­ing to a friend­ly col­league (who isn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly touchy).
3. If the answers you receive are not good enough, ask fol­low-up ques­tions and be amazed that Chat­G­PT under­stands that you have high­er demands and deliv­ers accordingly.
4. When you notice that it is more tempt­ing to get start­ed on the task than to pro­cras­ti­nate, you are ready. Thank Chat­G­PT for the help and get to work!

Lighter work­load

If you use Chat­G­PT to help you when you tend to pro­cras­ti­nate on a task, you will get start­ed faster. It may even be less labo­ri­ous than if you were to break down the task your­self. Instead of becom­ing increas­ing­ly bur­dened by tasks hang­ing over you, you get going and your work­load is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced.

What about you?

What have you used Chat­G­PT for? Please tell me, because I want all the help I can get in my job — whether it’s from oth­er peo­ple or from smart sys­tems that hap­pi­ly do what I don’t feel like doing.

(Speak­ing of pro­cras­ti­nat­ing, here are my four tricks to help you pri­or­i­tize impor­tant, big tasks when the short ones feel tempt­ing!)