3 Ways to Use AI Tools to Boost Productivity Today

No matter what your role is in a business, there’s always more to do. One of the key points of leadership is knowing when and what to delegate. But what happens when there’s no one to delegate to? With the development of AI, anyone who works with computer-based tasks now has a powerful helper.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, business owner, executive, administrative assistant, or anyone in between, AI can help take some of the load off. There are countless tools that can streamline or even eliminate repetitive work.

In this blog, we’ll explore three ways to use Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT or Gemini, to boost productivity by simplifying everyday tasks. My preferred LLM for these tasks is ChatGPT.

Streamline Communication with AI-Powered Email Writing

One of the easiest starting points for using AI is email writing. I’ve found that this is often people’s first point of entry. The challenge is that the results can sound robotic or overly polished, which makes it clear that AI was involved. So, how do you get around that?

Start by opening a new chat and coaching your preferred LLM. This chat will be dedicated to capturing your written voice so you can use it later to edit and improve emails. Tell it that you’ll upload 10 samples of your writing and that you want it to analyze your style to learn what you sound like in writing. Instruct it not to do anything until you confirm that all samples have been uploaded.

Prompt:

In this chat, act as my executive assistant specializing in written communication. Your first task is to capture my written voice. I will upload samples of my writing for you to analyze. From these samples, create three tone categories for me to use in the future: casual, semi-professional, and professional. Once my voice is established, I will use this chat to draft or refine written communications, such as emails, posts, and blogs, using my authentic tone. When improving my drafts, keep my style and phrasing intact, focus on clarity and flow, and avoid using em dashes. All writing should sound naturally like me.

Next, upload at least 10 solid writing samples, emails or other pieces that reflect your true writing voice and have not been written with AI. This is important because you want it to capture your authentic tone, not one influenced by AI-generated phrasing.

Once your samples are uploaded, tell the chat you’re finished and ready for it to analyze your written voice. It may give you feedback or ask follow-up questions, but once it completes the task, you’ll have a customized chat ready to help you edit and refine emails that still sound like you.

The best part is that you can now write quick, rough drafts of emails and paste them into the chat to have them improved. When you upload a rough draft of an email, ask it to improve clarity, punctuation, and grammar while making sure it captures the specific tone or tones you are going for (casual, semi-professional, professional). The result will be a polished email that takes a fraction of the time to create.

Prompt:

Use my previously captured written voice to improve this email. Keep my natural tone and phrasing from the writing samples you analyzed. Only adjust clarity, punctuation, grammar, and flow where needed. Do not remove my personality or change my style. Provide two versions: one in my semi-professional tone and one in my professional tone. Don’t over-edit or make it sound robotic. Do not use any em dashes.

Save Time and Gain Insights with AI Newsletter Summaries

I don’t know about you, but I have an internal battle when it comes to email newsletters. On one hand, they’re full of valuable information that I want to read. On the other hand, it takes time to scan through them and figure out what actually matters. Newsletters can easily pile up, creating an inbox backlog that leads to wasted time and lost information. This is where AI can really help.

Set up a chat to act as your personal assistant, summarizing and highlighting the most important details from each newsletter. Start by opening a new chat and crafting a prompt that tells it exactly how you want the summaries to look and what kind of information to focus on.

Once your instructions are set, grab one of the newsletters you’ve received. Highlight and copy the entire thing, then paste it into the chat. In seconds, you’ll have a clean summary that highlights the main ideas and key takeaways.

Just remember that AI can make mistakes. If a newsletter contains something especially important, it’s still a good idea to read it yourself since the AI might miss something you would consider valuable.

Prompt:

In this chat, act as my email summary assistant. Your job is to summarize newsletters that I paste here and highlight the most important information. For each newsletter, provide:

• A short 3–5 sentence summary of the main ideas.

• The top 3–5 key points or takeaways that represent the full scope of the newsletter, not just one section or theme.

• One to two sub-points under each main point, written in one concise sentence each.

When determining importance, prioritize balance across topics and include major facts, data, or announcements even if they don’t fit the main narrative. Avoid opinion or filler. Keep the language clear, objective, and easy to scan. Focus on saving me time while ensuring I still get every critical piece of information.

Use AI to Simplify Google Sheets and Create Formulas Fast

I use Google Sheets a lot for tracking data and organizing information. But when it comes to creating complex formulas, it can be easy to hit a wall. I often know what I want a formula to do but not exactly how to write it. That’s where AI can be a huge help.

Start by opening a new chat and asking your preferred LLM to act as a Google Sheets expert. Describe what you’re trying to accomplish in detail and ask if it’s possible to do within Sheets. The chat will let you know if it can be done and how to approach it.

You can also use the same chat as you build out your sheet. Ask it to write formulas for you, troubleshoot errors, or explain why a formula isn’t working. If something doesn’t function as expected, have it review the formula, tell you what’s wrong, and walk you through how to fix it.

By the end, you’ll have cleaner, smarter spreadsheets and save a lot of time. AI can act like a personal spreadsheet assistant, helping you push past roadblocks and build tools that actually work the way you want them to.