Please never let me optimise my walking route through a city; let’s always leave room for chasing after beauty, for discovery and serendipity.  Let’s be wilfully, wonderfully unproductive, let’s not become machines.  But I do understand the fascination with personal productivity, with habit-stacking and automation, if it wins us a little more time to be human.

TL;DR: Map the process, automate what you can, create workflows for the rest, and augment them with machine learning tools wherever possible. 

If you want to improve your personal productivity, consider using automation tools and machine learning. These technologies can help you streamline your workflow, freeing up your time for other important tasks.

For example, with Zapier, you can automate tasks like creating CRM entries from emails and meeting notes from calendar appointments. This can help you stay organized and save time. Additionally, Zapier can be connect APIs to automate social media posts, generate reports from data inputs, and integrate with other apps and services to eliminate manual data entry.

In addition, large language models like ChatGPT can help you generate high-quality content quickly and easily. You can use these models to summarize documents and write blog posts*, freeing up your time for other important tasks. ChatGPT can also be used to generate responses to customer inquiries, draft emails, and even create entire documents from a few input prompts.

* Of course, these last three paragraphs have, themselves, been written by AI.

Let’s look at a productivity optimisation process:

1. Map the process: Start by identifying the specific steps involved in the process you want to improve. Create a visual representation of the process, such as a flowchart or diagram, to help you understand how each step connects and where there may be opportunities for improvement.
2. Automate what you can: Look for opportunities to automate repetitive or time-consuming tasks within the process. This could include using tools like Zapier to create automatic triggers and actions, or setting up scripts or macros to automate certain steps.
3. Create workflows for what can’t be automated: For tasks that can’t be fully automated, create workflows to streamline and standardize the process. This could involve creating templates or standardized forms, establishing clear guidelines and protocols, or implementing project management tools to help you manage and track progress.
4. Augment the workflow steps with machine learning tools where possible: Finally, look for opportunities to use machine learning tools to augment the process and improve its efficiency. This could include using tools like ChatGPT to generate high-quality content**, or using predictive analytics to help you make more informed decisions and optimize the workflow.

** Yep, still being written by a large language model.

If you’re ready to kick off a productivity optimisation process and take the first step towards a more streamlined and efficient workflow, contact me now to get started.***

*** Yep, even this call to action (it’s a bit on the nose for me).