Get AI to help you deal with your crazy life
April 2, 2025
Jeremy Caplan, who writes the great Wondertools Newsletter, recently noted, "AI is particularly helpful for strategic planning. . . . [D]etail for your AI assistant your objectives and operating context. Have it help you think through a plan for the next month based on your goals." Wondertools, March 20, 2025. Let's make that actionable with the following prompt.
Act as an expert in strategic planning and time management. Assume that I am the [title] at [name of nonprofit], whose website can be found at [URL]. My objectives over the next month include the following: [goals]. The context in which I am trying to accomplish those goals includes the following: [provide context, including demands on your time already in place]. Your task is to help me develop a work plan for myself for the next month based on my goals and context. Ask me questions, one at a time, to gather any additional information you need to perform this task, and once you are ready (or I decide you have asked enough questions), perform the task. I may follow up with additional requests. Make sure you ruminate on each input and each of your responses.
Why does this work? The process of detailing what you face and want to accomplish will help you understand your priorities better. Plus, the AI's clarifying questions will help you think of resources to draw upon. Then use some of the additional prompts I noted last week to make AI work harder for you.
One note about this prompt. You might want to take the timeframe out to three months or more. You might also use the Eisenhower Matrix to describe your tasks as you input them, explaining to the AI that this is what you are doing. Or you could change the prompt as follows:
Act as an expert in strategic planning and time management. Assume that I am the [title] at [name of nonprofit], whose website can be found at [URL]. My objectives over the next month include the following: [goals]. The context in which I am trying to accomplish those goals includes the following: [provide context, including demands on your time already in place]. Your ultimate task is to help me develop a work plan for myself for the next month based on my goals and context, but after you are ready as part of that process, I will want you to help me categorize my objectives according to the Eisenhower Matrix. Ask me questions, one at a time, to gather any additional information you need to perform the ultimate task, and once you are ready (or I decide you have asked enough questions), perform the task. I may follow up with additional requests. Make sure you ruminate on each input and each of your responses.
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