Managing time and priorities

How to manage your time and priorities efficiently with ChatGPT's assistance.

beginner free

Tool: ChatGPT Topic: Operations

2024-11-13

More focus, less procrastination. We all want to be more productive and work on the things that matter most. When prompted right, ChatGPT can help you zero-in on high-leverage tasks and work more effectively and efficiently.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use AI to:

Organize and manage your time
Identify your priorities
Become more productive in your day-to-day work

Prioritization techniques

First start by understanding some different prioritization strategies.

Suggested prompt:

What are some common prioritization techniques?

Now give ChatGPT your specific context. In this tutorial, we’ll consider a combination of work-related and life-related tasks.

What would you recommend for helping me manage my time and tasks? It's a combination of work tasks and personal tasks.

ChatGPT will give you recommendations to consider. With a few strategies in mind, start developing your plan.

Turn your list of tasks into a weekly calendar

Collect your list of tasks. Everyone is different. You might have sticky notes on a wall, a list in your Notes app, or a calendar of time blocks with associated work. Regardless of your current task management strategy, you’ll need to share them with ChatGPT. You can write them down as a list, or simply screenshot or take a picture and upload it to ChatGPT.

You’re going to help me prioritize work, manage tasks, and plan my week. With the following information, construct a Monday-to-Friday schedule.

Work schedule: [start work day - end work day]

Lunch: daily [start lunch break - end lunch break]

Meeting block: daily [start meeting block - end meeting block]

List of tasks and duration:

[task] - [duration]
[task] - [duration]
[task] - [duration]

Use this as your starting point. ChatGPT is prone to making errors with numbers. You’ll notice for example it repeatedly counts 1:00pm - 2:30pm as 30 minutes. Make sure to review the output before committing to it.

Task prioritization

Eisenhower Box / Matrix

One framework ChatGPT will likely suggest is an Eisenhower Matrix (or Box). Ask ChatGPT for instructions and a template. It’s a great tool to help you organize a seemingly abstract collection of tasks into a more focused set of to-do’s.

What is an Eisenhower Matrix? Provide instructions and a template.

R.I.C.E. prioritization method

Somewhat more involved is the RICE prioritization method that involves calculating priorities based on Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. ChatGPT can give you more details on the RICE method, a template, and instructions.

What's the RICE prioritization method? Provide instructions and a template.

Productivity tips

Goal setting

To start each week on the right track, set goals for yourself. ChatGPT can help you with an easy to fill-in template.

Create a brief weekly goal setting template.

Weekly reviews

Before starting your weekend, take 10 minutes to recap how your week went. Use a simple template from ChatGPT to help you reflect on your work, your productivity, and what you can improve on next week.

Share a weekly review template that will help me identify opportunities to increase productivity next week

Congratulations! You’re a working smarter and more productively with templates and a calendar generated with ChatGPT.

This tutorial was created by Jonah.