Brian Nelson-Palmer shares 14 creative prompts to leverage generative AI (like ChatGPT) to supercharge your productivity at work and in your personal life. This is especially relevant to Project Managers and Aspiring Leaders. From data analysis to contract summaries to infusing humor into speeches, he provides practical examples of how AI can be your "brilliant intern." He also introduces his new Productivity Gladiator membership course where you can learn these skills in a more hands-on learning environment.
The Audio/Podcast
Links to References In This Episode
The brand new monthly membership available from Productivity Gladiator. It’s the monthly Starbucks for your professional development. This special introductory offer will never be available again. It’s a steal at the current price as more and more is added to the membership, thanks for considering joining now, getting in on the ground floor.
The episode on AI and how it will affect your job, with Christopher Lind.
Episode Digest
Are you looking to boost your productivity and streamline various tasks in your professional and personal life? Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and others offer a powerful solution. With the ability to analyze data, generate ideas, and provide insights, these AI assistants can act as your "brilliant intern," taking care of tedious and time-consuming tasks so you can focus on higher-level work.
Here are 14 creative ways to leverage generative AI to transform your productivity:
Intense Raw Data Analysis
Got a massive spreadsheet filled with raw sales data from various regions and years? Simply upload it to the AI and ask it to find the region with the highest revenue for each year from 2010 to 2024. AI can quickly crunch through the numbers, providing you with the insights you need.Write The Excel Formula
Struggling to get the right syntax for a complex Excel formula? Describe the data you have and the calculation you want, and the AI can provide the exact formula you need to reference cells across sheets and perform the desired analysis.Help Create Pivot Tables
Pivot tables are powerful data summarization tools, but setting them up correctly can be tricky. Leverage AI by providing your data set and asking it to create a pivot table that shows the metrics you need, such as average sales size per salesperson.Leverage Meeting Transcripts
Missed an important meeting? No problem. Copy the transcript, paste it into the AI, and ask it to summarize what happened, including any action items assigned to you. Stay on top of things even when you can't attend every meeting.Absorb Contracts and Long Documents Quickly
Taking over a new project mid-stream? Ask the AI to summarize a contract or project charter, outlining the deliverables, who's responsible for what, and when things are due. Get up to speed quickly without wading through dense legalese.Find Templates
Need to create an event invite, marketing email, or other communication? AI has templates for nearly everything. Provide the key details, and it can generate a well-structured draft that you can further refine.Locate Laws and Regulations
Navigating legal and policy requirements can be a headache. Cut through the confusion by asking the AI to surface relevant laws, regulations, and policies for your specific situation, along with explanations of how they might impact your plans.Brainstorm Creative Writing
Hit a creative block? AI can be your brainstorming buddy, generating engaging titles, catchy one-liners, or fresh angles to liven up your presentations, speeches, or written materials.Learn Quick
Need to get up to speed on an unfamiliar topic fast? Describe the situation to the AI, such as an upcoming interview for a role you're not fully versed in, and it can suggest relevant questions to ask or areas to research.Fight Tickets
Got slapped with a parking ticket? Some towns have exceptions or appeals processes you may not know about. Ask the AI if there's any way to get out of your specific ticket based on the location and circumstances.Understand Permit Requirements
Planning some home renovations? Rather than wading through confusing bureaucracy, ask the AI if you need any permits for your project and how to obtain them based on your city and state.Find Recipes for Certain Ingredients
Moving soon and want to use up what's left in your pantry? List out the ingredients you have on hand, and the AI can suggest recipes to help you avoid food waste.Get Travel Recommendations
Killing time before your flight? Ask the AI for top attractions or activities you can do nearby during your layover window.Add Humor to Speeches
Tasked with giving a toast or presentation? The AI can help by generating funny one-liners or anecdotes to add some lighthearted moments to your material.
The possibilities are endless when it comes to leveraging AI for productivity. These tools can free up time for more meaningful endeavors.
Of course, it's important to use AI judiciously and fact-check its outputs rather than blindly trusting the information provided. Think of it as that "brilliant intern" – capable and useful but still requiring oversight. By taking advantage of AI's strengths while applying human judgment, you can unlock new levels of efficiency across all areas of your life.
CAN I HELP YOU LEVEL UP WITH THIS?
This episode was 14 prompts. The course I just released as part of the Productivity Gladiator Membership is around 54 prompts. I’ll go much more in depth with you. I’ve shared my screen and given you the examples, and you can participate along with the video lessons, and really get hands on with AI.
This new monthly membership is like a monthly Starbucks for your professional development. This special introductory offer will never be available again. It’s an unbelievable value at the current price, and if you get in now on the ground floor, it will only become more valuable as more and more is added. Thanks for considering joining!
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About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. After spending a career hands-on in the trenches as a senior project manager, I now help others to level-up through my Productivity Gladiator training. These Gladiators wield email management superpowers, a laser-guided ability to focus, samurai-grade prioritization skills, a sniper-precise task tracking approach, Jedi time management skills, and a secret sauce for maximizing their personal life balance. If what you’ve seen here intrigues you, reach out, let’s chat! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.
Transcript
I'm Brian Nelson Palmer, and on this show, I talk about personal practical productivity skills. This is a knowledge drop episode, and this time I'm sharing the top 14 prompts you could be using with AI to be significantly more productive. Now, Here's my big news. I finally have a way to teach and share all this stuff directly with you. After more than a decade of exclusively working with business clients,
I now have a productivity gladiator membership. And here's the difference. Here's what that means. With the podcast, I share this knowledge and it's do it yourself. I tell you about it and then you have to go figure it out on your own. And with this membership, I now have a course to go with this knowledge drop episode. So I'll share my screen and you can actually do it with me right then in real time. So you don't have to go figure it out on your own.
and I can be there with you to help you get started with these productivity skills. The learning I find happens three times faster this way if you're doing it with me. And the impact is certainly twice as big at least. So it's not just the knowledge drop episode two, but one of the things with productivity gladiator training is I've had folks really interested in all of that other good training about to -do list and time management and email management and all of that stuff. And so.
over the next month and months and years, I'm going to be releasing that with this productivity gladiator membership as well. So it's not just the episode, but even more. And right now I've got a special introductory offer. Of course, don't we all when we're talking about this, but it will never be this inexpensive again, because if you're willing to take a chance on me now and support me now while I do this and you'll come with me on this journey.
then I'm happy to keep that introductory price as I add more content, more features, more tiers. There's a lot in store for this membership and I want to share it all with you. So thanks for coming on this journey with me. So today's AI course for this topic, the AI courses in there, plus I already have two more in there. One on my version of time management that came from the Ted organization. I took it about two levels deeper. If you've watched the Ted talk,
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This goes two levels deeper into that concept and how you can apply it. I've got calculators you'll use. It's awesome. And then the other one is on why you write things down. And over the coming months, like I said, I'll keep rolling out more. So now let's jump into today's topic, which is leveraging generative AI. It's one of the most common things that comes up in the workshops I do with businesses. I'm going to reference back. I was kind of inspired. There was an episode with Christopher Lind.
where we talked about the impact of AI on your job. And now I want to share some of, let's get specific about these are some things you can and should be doing with AI to help you be more productive. I've got Generative AI is things like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude. You might've heard some of these names before. I hope you have and you're already using them. But through Productivity Gladiator, when I'm teaching time management, email inbox to zero, focus prioritization with these,
with business clients, we're talking about how we can leverage AI. So these are my 14 prompts for you. Now, There's important warnings that I need to give you upfront when it comes to AI. First, using AI, I think of is now a required job skill. I equate interacting with AI to be another skill that you need to learn in your career, Like,
how to use Microsoft Word or remember how to type if you're that old and like what's there's different skills you need in the business world. And at this point, this is definitely a skill you need. So to be relevant, you need to start using these tools right now. In my opinion, I think it's important. And that way, during interviews and discussions, whether you're using it in your job or not, There's a lot of the people that you're working with that are going to be using these tools. So.
You're going to need to be able to relate to those folks. And more importantly, I want you to be able to share your own personal stories about how you used it, not just how you heard about it. So in those future discussions around the workplace, I don't want you to just tell stories about what you heard or somebody said on a podcast. I want your stories to sound more like, yes, I used AI to do this and this and have examples to give with you. So.
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I want you to dive in and I hope you're already using it. Also leverage, but don't trust AI. Think of AI as your brilliant intern. In the episode with Christopher Lind, I give him total credit for the brilliant intern. I'd never heard that phrase and it's always stuck with me from that episode. So if you haven't heard that episode, I'll drop the link, but you, AI can get it wrong a lot sometimes. And so,
You wouldn't trust your intern to do your work completely for you without checking their product before you gave it to your boss. And this is the same thing with AI. Don't just blindly trust the information that AI gives you.
and the data that it provides. Ask it to support where it got the information that you requested and what it's telling you. For most tasks, I think of AI as starting me 50 to 80 % of the way there, but I still need to finish it. And that's important for you too. So now what do you do with the bandwidth? Here's another important thing. What do you do with the bandwidth that AI frees up for you? And
Please don't just do more work. AI is certainly designed to be more productive, but I want you to consciously think about if AI is making you more productive or it takes less time to do some of your tasks, Please take on meaningful projects or something to expand your career or take a course to learn something new with that extra time. Use the extra time that this gives you to be more productive, but also...
to learn something and do something meaningful in your career or in your life. Also, here's my disclaimer, everything that I share here, these are just my own ideas and I'm sharing my own experience. So anything that you do with these AI tools is entirely your responsibility. I'm not telling you to do this, this is not advice. These are my ideas and I wanna share them with you. All right, so first up, provide answers by doing...
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Intense raw data analysis. Imagine this. Imagine you have a spreadsheet full of raw data. Let's say it's sales data from all the different regions of the world all the way down at the per transaction level. Massive spreadsheet. Ask AI which region had the highest revenue in each of the years 2010 through 2024. And upload the spreadsheet as well.
AI can do this for you. And it's an emerging capability, but they're also rolling out these built -in capabilities to spreadsheet applications. So you might not even need to do a set, have a separate AI to do this analysis. This might be something that you could roll out right now. So let a leverage AI to help you do this data analysis that you need and draw some of these conclusions or find the answers in the data that you're looking for.
Love using AI for this.
Second one, find the Excel formula. Imagine this, you have a big spreadsheet showing the performance data for a repetitive task that happens over and over and over in your workplace. It's completed by different people on a different team. And so you want to create a scoreboard that's some kind of chart to see.
what the average time is, what's the highest time, what's the lowest time you can use. You want this dashboard to kind of be a performance dashboard or almost like a scoreboard. Right. And that way you can kind of inspire your team to maybe improve their performance because they can see how they're doing compared to the other folks on this task. Ask AI in column X. Is the length of time that it took the person to complete the task each time and in column D,
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is the name of the person. What's the formula I need to put in cell B2 on the next sheet, which will go back to the previous tab and give me the average of the times for the person in cell A2?
Syntax is important and figuring out it. AI will tell you how do you reference back to the other tab? What's the appropriate cut? Is it a V lookup thing? I've used AI to give me some really complex formulas. And for me, the logic makes sense. Sometimes I know what I want the formula to do, but getting the syntax right and how the word the words are laid out, man, that's a challenge sometimes. And AI is an awesome assistant for that.
So leverage it. It's good idea. Number three, data to create. You have data to create pivot tables. So ask it to create pivot tables. Imagine this. Imagine you've got the same big sales data spreadsheet I was talking about earlier, and now you've got to do some much more complicated calculations. This is something where a pivot table would help. Now, are you already a pivot table expert?
I'm not, I don't use pivot tables all the time. And for me, getting that pivot table set up to give me the data that I need is part of the thing that's really a challenge. I've done it before, I can do it, but inevitably if I'm trying to figure it out, it takes me a long time. So AI can talk you through setting it up if you haven't tried this. So ask AI, I have a spreadsheet that shows sales data. How can I create a pivot table which will show me...
the average size, average sales size per salesperson. You can have a whole conversation on this. You can ask it, oh, well, what about this? How about if I want this in this column? Can I get it to show me some, the sum of all the different transactions? It will help you create the pivot table or the structure that you need to get the data. In the course that I shared, I actually give you an example. I give you example data and
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I share my screen and you'll try these with me and we'll set up the pivot table together. Very cool what you can do with pivot tables. Number four, meeting transcripts. Imagine you missed a meeting and it was recorded. Open up the recording, copy the transcript, paste it into AI and ask, summarize what happened in this meeting from the included transcript.
What are the action items in general and for me specifically from this meeting? It's amazing what AI can deliver for you. This is really great for me too because oftentimes I can't be in two places at once. There's two meetings that I wanna go to and I can't be there for both. I have to make decisions based on one or the other. If one's being recorded, I will go to the live one.
and I will leverage AI for the transcript from the one that's recorded to catch me up real quick on what I might have missed.
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Contracts and long documents. I love AI for this. Imagine you just got put in charge of a project or a contract midstream. This happens to me all the time in my career. I probably for you to where they're like here join this team join this thing inevitably there's probably a project charter or a contract document or something that's been put in place before in before you join the team. So here's the prompt.
I just took over managing this contract, summarize what's what this contract project is about and outline the deliverables specifically who needs to do what and when and give it the contract document or the documents that you have. It's helped me give me a snapshot right off the bat of some of the general. It gives me the 10 thousand foot view really quick and really easy so that I can then zoom in and
be more specific with the data that I need from it and what my role is, but so helpful. Number six, find templates. AI has templates for everything. Imagine you're creating an invite to an event. Maybe it's a meeting, a calendar invite for a meeting or an Eventbrite for an actual event, humans forget to include information. You might've done this before. Somebody sends you a calendar invite
and it doesn't say the location or it doesn't say the time or there's some important details that get left out by leveraging your brilliant intern with AI, before you send something out, you'll get all the details the first time. and you'll help create more memorable invites. It phrases it really well. So here's the thing. Here's an example. Ask AI: I'm hosting a fundraiser event to benefit.
Big Brother Big Sister Organization. I'm a volunteer with them on the side. That's one of my life balance things. So I'm sorry, the prompt is, I'm hosting a fundraiser event to benefit the Big Brother Big Sister Organization where I live. Here's the date, time, location. Help me create the details I need to put in the Eventbrite page information. It will list it out for you. And then Here's a bonus.
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Ask it after it does that. Ask it. Can you make it even more persuasive? We'll be looking for these people to donate to the cause, not just attend. AI will rewrite it with some more language for you that you could use. And then you pick and select what you like, but that'll give you an outline. It'll give you a template. Love AI for the templates because it's a place to get you started. Number seven, find laws and regulations. Oh, boy, guys, Finding laws and policies
is exhausting sometimes. Have you done this? Oh, man, Google searches, they just don't cut it, right? The government and big corporations, they are notorious for providing too much information and it's not accessible. They don't have it in an easily searchable format. So you spend hours searching for this stuff. AI takes this the extra mile and it will help you find the law, regulation or policy or whatever to tell you why
it thinks it's relevant. So here, ask AI. We want to expand our efforts in the shipping business by starting direct shipments between Cuba and the U .S. What are the laws, regulations and policies which might get in the way of that business? And how would they be limiting? That's just to get you started. You might not be in the shipping business. Translate this to whatever your business is. But if you're trying to do a new function, If you're a project manager or a leader and they're saying, hey, we're going to try this now.
and you don't know what the laws, policies, procedures are, instead of just Googling, Ask AI. It will help you. It can even explain it to you. You can have whole conversations back and forth about it. So remember that one. It's it's been super helpful for me. Number eight, come up with creative ways to write better. AI is my brainstorming buddy, and man, I love it. Imagine you have a presentation that seems kind of dull. Here's Ask AI.
Brainstorm 10 engaging titles for my presentation on the 2022 federal budget. Try this. You'll be so amazed at what it comes up with to make it sound at least a little more interesting than imagine that slideshow. The presentation on the 2022 federal budget versus some of the titles that it gives you. And here's a tip when you do ask for a certain number of options.
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That way it's going to give you 10 ideas and you can pick and choose. Sometimes the first one and the fifth one are really good. So I take the first part of the first one and the second part of the fifth one and I put them together and that becomes my title. Ask for multiple options when you're brainstorming with AI. Super helpful. Number nine, learn quick. Imagine this, it's 2 p .m. and your boss walks in and says, Hey,
I want you to sit in on this interview for a new project manager in the database administration group. You're not in that group, but this is tangential. This person will be overseeing the work with our data that's housed in Amazon Web Services. And let's assume you don't know anything about that tech. So ask AI. My boss just asked me to sit in on an interview for a project manager in our database administration team.
with our data that's housed in Amazon Web Services. What type of interview questions should I ask to make sure that they A, understand the topic and B, would be a good leader for that group?
Those ideas that it gives you will help you create some great questions so that when you walk into that room, you're prepared, even though you might not be an expert. on these areas off the bat. If you need to learn quick so that you can help do something at work, man, AI is a wonderful resource to at least get you to start to get you up to speed, to get you off the ground and get you started. Now, I want to share five bonus
personal business use. The nine that I just shared are business uses. but I want to share these five. I told you 14. These are five that are personal uses because AI is something I use in my personal life pretty frequently as well. So here's five ways I've used AI in my personal life that's been a huge help. You try these for yourself, or you can just laugh about it and laugh at me about it, but this is a funny thing. So number 10, a parking ticket.
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Imagine you walk up to your car and you have a parking ticket sitting on your windshield. So ask AI. I just got a parking ticket in whatever city and state for parking for three hours in a two hour zone. Is there a way for me to get out of it? And here's a funny story. When I did this, it turned out that my particular town that I was in at the time had some sort of.
program where if you had had too much to drink and you get a parking ticket, but you couldn't drive home, then you could wave. You could get the they would waive the ticket and there were something you had to submit. It was like a, you know, you had a receipt showing that you were at whatever restaurant nearby at the time or something and they would wave your ticket. and that worked for me, and I had no idea that this program even existed, but that was AI. So it just, it's such a funny thing, but it.
Help me out so it can help you with, you know, advice or like I said, it's a place to start. Awesome. Number 11, Permits. Imagine you're about to add a new deck to your house. You're not sure if you need a permit for that. And I don't know about you, but have you looked through the permit situation or tried to get into that? Because man, oh, it's been so it's so frustrating sometimes to get to get permit information. So ask AI. I'm about to add a deck.
to my home. Do I need any permits for this kind of work? If so, how do I get those permits if I live in your city and state? Ask it and see it helped me so much when I was looking through. I was in Arlington, Virginia, and I needed to find out about permits because I was on the H .O .A. board and there was a question about permits and I don't know much about permits. I'm not an expert on that, but.
AI told me where I went and I was able to find the relevant information that I needed for that. It was so helpful. Number 12, recipes. Here's a fun one. Imagine you're moving in two weeks and you need to start using up the leftovers that are in the fridge and the pantry. You've been in this situation. It's happened to me each time I move and you don't want to let that stuff go to waste. So ask AI. I'm moving next week and
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I'm trying to use up everything in my pantry. What recipes could I use to make, what could I make, what recipes could I make using the following ingredients? Frozen pre -grilled chicken, frozen spinach, marinara sauce, a can of black beans, and a can of pears. It works. AI sent me recipes for this exact situation. I couldn't believe it. And.
It's so helpful sometimes to be able to give it the ingredients and let it find the recipe for you. And I know that there's websites that will do this for you. And this capability isn't new, but it's much easier to just type this little paragraph. Or even if you're a pro, if you're trying to be pro, you can dictate, use the little microphone feature and you can type speech to text, speech to text this into the AI prompt and hit the button and see what it gives you. You'll be amazed at the ideas that it gives you. Number 13.
travel recommendations. Imagine you're traveling for work and you have six hours to kill after the work thing is done before you go to the airport. So ask AI, I have six hours until I need to leave for the airport from this address, wherever you are. What are the top three things I could or should do while I'm there in that time that I can walk to nearby?
AI can give you ideas. It'll find this information. So that's been really handy when I've been traveling for work or traveling even personally if there's time to kill or something and you're just looking for ideas, it'll give you some good ideas.
Add humor to your speech. Here's number 14. Imagine you're giving the best man speech at your friend's wedding. You have a heartfelt speech, but you feel it's kind of heavy and you're looking for ways to lighten it up a little bit. So ask AI. I need a couple of funny one -liners for my best man speech that I'm giving at a wedding. Give me 10 options for quick jokes that I can incorporate. Now I've used this for
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A toast, I've used this in a couple of speeches or presentations that I've given, if I'm looking for one liners. It's really helpful to ask for these anecdotes. So there's number 14. Ask for ideas, for humor, for your stuff. So two quick things to close out this Knowledge Drop episode. First, that was 14 ideas. The online course I told you about that I shared on this topic for using AI has
54 prompts. And what I love is I'm giving you example data to use. It's step by step instructions. Go here, do this. Here's the data. You put this in. And so I love it because I'm really able to. I'm an instructor. I'm a teacher at heart. And I love getting people up to speed on this stuff. And so it's so cool to me to be able to actually give you all the things and then you're going to type it in and you're going to see how it works for you on your computer. Real live. I love that. So if you're already experienced
with using AI, this might expand your knowledge a little bit. It's I mean, 54 prompts is going to be some great practice to really hone those skills that you've already started. And if you're a holdout, if you're one of those folks, I meet them a lot, by the way, there's still there's some stat, I think only 20, 30, 40 percent of the population has actually logged in and tried AI. They've just heard about it, but they've never actually touched it. So if you're one of those holdouts who hasn't really dabbled in AI yet.
If you don't have an account with chat GPT or Claude or Gemini or some of these names that you might've heard about on the news, this is going to be a thorough and welcoming intro that you can apply the learning right away so that you can get hands on and have this experience. So the reason I'm so excited about this is that for my entire career, my training was always with private training for business clients who brought me in for their folks. So I just love that I now have this way to teach it with you directly.
So last thing before with the wrap is please share this episode specifically. If you have a friend that you talk to about AI stuff, would you text them the link to this episode specifically? I say this because for me, when I share a specific episode with someone, the text back and forth via text, right, directly, not share it on social media, but actually text someone with the episode itself.
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The back and forth that happens is always so much more rewarding in that relationship with that person, more so than anything that happens when I share something on social media or just a general share or that kind of thing. So thanks for giving it a try. And of course, thank you for the likes, the follows, the subscribes, the reviews. I really appreciate. I love sharing this productivity gladiator thing with you. That's a wrap.