Advanced · Communication and productivity · module 154 of 155
Personal productivity: planning and prioritising
Use AI to organise your tasks and plan your week, while you decide the priorities and boundaries.
After this lesson
You let AI suggest an overview and a schedule, choose the priorities yourself and give an assistant only the access it needs.
In view · Side by side
Priorities remain yours
AI groups tasks and estimates the time, with your deadlines and appointments.
Do it yourself today, schedule it, or delegate and let go.
Room for unexpected work, focus blocks and a look back.
Part 1 of 3 · Overview
Your preference for less movement is on. Choose each part yourself.
From a full list to an overview
A long to-do list causes stress. AI can help to group tasks, estimate how much time they take and propose a plan for your week (lesson 39). Include your own deadlines, fixed appointments and the times when you have the most energy. The model does not know what your manager considers important or which customer has already called three times. So you decide on the priorities: what must be done today, what do you schedule, and what do you delegate or let go?
Mailbox and calendar: access with limits
An assistant that reads your mailbox or calendar can help to sort emails or suggest appointments (lesson 112). Preferably give read-only access, and do not let the assistant send emails or confirm appointments without you seeing it. Watch out for hidden instructions in incoming emails (lesson 111). Check the suggested priorities: an email that looks urgent is not always urgent, and a short message from an important customer can get buried.
A plan you actually follow
Plan realistically: leave room for unexpected work and breaks. Blocks of focused work are more effective than constantly switching between tasks. At the end of the week, look at what worked and what did not, and adjust your approach (lesson 95). AI can help with that review, for example by looking for patterns in what keeps overrunning. Productivity is not about doing as much as possible, but about doing the right things without overloading yourself.
New practice example
From explanation to a usable result.
AI can organise your tasks and suggest a schedule. You set the priorities and only give an assistant the access it needs.
Fictional practice situationFictional: a project worker has an AI assistant sort the inbox. The assistant puts a short message from the most important client at the bottom, because it does not contain a word such as “urgent”.
View a possible solution
This is how it can be done
The employee adds a rule: messages from the three most important clients always go to the top. He takes a quick look at the sorting every morning, and the assistant may only sort, not reply.
Why this works
The assistant does not know how important a sender is. A rule of your own and a short daily check make up for that.
Make it slightly more difficult
Which rule would you add to an assistant that sorts your mailbox?
Extra practice, at your own pace. You do not need to submit anything. This does not count towards an automatic assessment.
Your workplace · learning by doing
Make something. See what changes.
Checking the AI connection… You can already view the written example.
Present your assignment to Ende.
Read the answer, change one thing, and compare.
Previously held
New version
You remain in control
What do you want to improve in your next attempt?
On this device only. AI answers remain only in this page memory. This is self-review, not a grade.
Why this approach works
The assistant does not know how important a sender is. A rule of your own and a short daily check make up for that.
A step further
Which rule would you add to an assistant that sorts your mailbox?
Try & discover · no obligation
Organise meeting notes
Categorise the notes as decision, action or open question. Make missing owners and deadlines visible.
Fictional to-do list on Monday morning. Your own role: quotes and customer contact. The newsletter is the responsibility of your colleague Sam.
- Today
- 0
- Schedule
- 0
- Delegate
- 0
An AI can make a suggestion, but you know the deadlines, your role and what your customers find important. You decide on the priorities.
This trial works locally with fictitious data and does not count towards your lesson completion. It starts anew with a new lesson or reload.
A prompt to get you started
Help me plan my week. Tasks: a quote for customer A, deadline today at 17:00; a presentation for the team, next Tuesday; the newsletter, which my colleague Sam is responsible for, but I need to give input; a training course on the new tool, at the end of next month; 40 unread emails. Fixed appointments: meetings on Monday and Thursday from 9:00 to 11:00. Sort the tasks into: do it yourself today, schedule, or delegate and let go. Then suggest a weekly plan with room for unexpected work. I decide on the priorities myself.
Apply it
An AI planning tool suggests filling your whole week with tasks, without breaks or room for unexpected work. On Wednesday three tasks overrun at once.
Which approach best fits this situation?
- Follow the plan and keep working after hours.
- Plan less tightly, with room for unexpected work and breaks, and decide yourself which task really gets priority.
- Mark all tasks as urgent so the tool puts them first.
With JavaScript, you can check your approach and receive immediate feedback.
Test your insight
An AI assistant has access to your mailbox and suggests automatically sending replies to emails it judges to be “simple”. What is sensible?
- Allow it, that saves the most time.
- Only let it prepare drafts that you review and send yourself.
- Give the assistant full access, so it can also confirm appointments.
Extra practice
Put your to-do list for next week into the three groups from this lesson. Let AI suggest a plan and adjust it where you see different priorities.
Do it yourself today: the quote for customer A, because it expires at 17:00. Schedule: the presentation on Thursday afternoon, the training course in the week after. Delegate or let go: the newsletter is for Sam; I will send my input today in five lines. Emails: two half-hour blocks a day. The AI suggested making the presentation on Monday morning, but I have a meeting then; I moved that.
