An approachable place to begin with AI when you already have enough to do.
If you’re trying to figure out where AI fits into your workday, finding the time to learn it can feel like a problem of its own. You still have your job to do. Your calendar is full. Now you’re supposed to learn another tool and somehow use it well enough to make your life easier.
I understand the hesitation. There is effort involved, and I don’t want to pretend otherwise. You have to explain what you need, review what comes back, and work through things that don’t happen quite the way you expected. You also have to reconsider how you organize your day.
That effort can be worthwhile. Where you choose to begin makes a difference.
When someone says, “I can’t take on one more thing,” my starting question is: What is something you do every day or every week that routinely irritates you?
Think of it like a paper cut. It might be small enough that you keep working around it, but you feel it every time. Perhaps it’s finding the information you need before a recurring meeting. Maybe it’s remembering all the follow-up tasks after a trip, or repeatedly putting the same information into a different format.
Something specific probably came to mind as you read that. I would start there.
One of my own examples is travel planning.
Work travel comes with a collection of things to remember. There are logistics to book, calendar blocks to create, receipts to collect, and expenses to prepare. My family needs to know when I’ll be away. I need to make time to pack.
I started by asking Claude to help me organize the tasks associated with a trip. As I used it, I began noticing other things I wanted help with.
Expense reports came into the picture. With access to my Google Drive, Claude could help organize a folder with the trip and client name and put receipts there. I added time for preparing expenses. I wanted packing suggestions based on the event I was attending. The setup grew to include calendar blocks, family notifications, and weather checks.
Eventually, I built this into a skill in Claude: reusable instructions for how I want it to help manage my travel.
I didn’t sit down on the first day with all of that figured out. I added to it as I went. There were glitches to work through, but much of the development came from using it and realizing, “It would also be helpful if it did this.”
If I had tried to design the whole thing before beginning, I would have given myself a much bigger project. Starting with the tasks let me learn while addressing something I already needed to do.
The reason to address these recurring irritations is personal.
For me, I want more room for rest and exercise. In my work, I want time for real conversations with people. I want to give them space to open up about how they’re feeling and work together on tangible changes that help them feel more at peace, a little happier, and able to do more of what they love.
Managing travel is necessary. It also takes attention that I would like to give to those things.
You will have your own reasons. Perhaps you want to arrive at a meeting prepared enough to contribute thoughtfully. You might want to spend more time with your team, or finish the day without carrying an unfinished administrative task into the evening.
Ask yourself what keeps taking time away from the work you care about, or from your own personal why. A frequent source of friction is a useful place to begin because you will have regular opportunities to see whether the help is making a difference.
Working with AI requires you to think through an assignment before handing it over.
If you treated it as a delegate or virtual employee, what would it need to know? What outcome are you looking for? What information can you provide? What should it leave to you?
For a travel checklist, that might mean explaining the trip dates, the kind of event, and what you’ve already booked. You could ask it to identify missing arrangements and questions for you to answer. You could also specify that you want suggestions to review before anything is booked, sent, or added to your calendar.
That is a clearer assignment than “Plan my trip.”
You will need to check its work. You may discover an assumption you hadn’t thought to explain or an instruction that needs to be more specific. Sometimes the tool will get something wrong despite clear instructions. Review is part of the responsibility you retain.
There is also discipline involved in making the new approach part of your day. Give yourself time to explain the task and review the result. When you make a useful correction, add it to your saved instructions so you can use it again.
For a closer look at how to brief and guide your AI delegate, read How Clearly Are You Asking?. The questions there can help you with the first task you choose here.
Choose one task that happens often enough to bother you. Keep the first attempt small enough that you can review it easily, using a tool and information approved for your work.
You can begin with this:
Every week, I have to ___. The part that takes time or irritates me is ___. Help me with this one part: ___. Ask me what you need to know before you begin. I want to review the result before taking any action.
For example:
Every week, I prepare for a team meeting. I spend time turning my notes into an agenda. Help me organize the notes below into a draft agenda, showing which items need a decision. Ask me about anything unclear. I’ll review it before sharing it.
Try it on one occurrence of the task. Then consider whether it helped. Did it remove a step? Did it make preparation easier? Did checking the result take more work than doing it yourself? Your answers will tell you what to adjust.
You don’t have to change everything overnight. Pick one routine irritation and see whether you can make it easier. Allow yourself to learn from that before deciding what comes next.
For today, which paper cut would you like to address?
How Clearly Are You Asking?. Think through the assignment you give your AI delegate and what it reveals about your communication with people.
Spend It on Purpose. Decide what you want to make room for as recurring tasks become easier.
Christina Levine is a Partner at Scimitar and the founder of Rehumanize Work™. With nearly twenty years of experience in consulting, strategic business management, and leadership development, she helps people reshape their days, teams, and organizations so they can do more of what they love. Her work brings Purpose, Presence, and Process into everyday practice through coaching, workshops, and practical changes to how work gets done.
If you or your team could use a partner in figuring out where to begin, reach out through scimitar.com. I’d welcome a conversation about what’s getting in your way and what we could work on together.