5 AI Prompts That Saved Me 10 Hours This Week
I tested 20 different AI prompts for common business tasks. Here are the five that actually worked—and how you can use them too.
Last week, I wrote about how learning to prompt AI taught me I'd been communicating poorly for 20 years. The response was overwhelming—dozens of messages asking: "Okay, but what exactly do you type?"
So this week, I did an experiment. I committed to using AI for every repetitive or time-consuming task that came across my desk. I tested different prompts, tracked my time, and documented what worked and what spectacularly didn't.
Here's what I learned: About 70% of my attempts were mediocre. About 20% were complete failures that created more work than they saved. But about 10%? Those were game-changers.
Those 10% saved me roughly 10 hours this week. That's not an exaggeration—I literally tracked my time.
Here are the five prompts that made the biggest difference, written in a format you can actually use. Each one includes the exact prompt I used, how to customize it for your needs, and what to watch out for.
Prompt 1: Turn Strategy Documents into Action Plans
What It Does:
Extracts actionable next steps from long strategic documents and creates clear calls-to-action for different stakeholders.
The Scenario:
I had a strategic planning document with multiple initiatives. I needed to translate these into specific actions for managers to take, but the document was dense and the actions were buried in paragraphs of context.
The Prompt:
Based on the initiatives in this document, provide clear calls-to-action for managers. For each action: 1. State what needs to be done 2. Identify who should do it 3. Suggest a realistic timeline [paste your document here]
How to Use It:
Start with your strategic document, planning doc, or meeting notes
Paste the content into your AI tool
Review the AI's suggestions for accuracy
Ask follow-up questions if anything needs clarification (I did: "Action #3 isn't clear—can you specify what 'review processes' means?")
IMPORTANT: If you notice vague actions, ask AI to clarify them before sending to your team
What Happened:
AI generated the initial action list in about 30 seconds. But I noticed some actions were vague—things like "review processes" without specifying which processes or what to review for. So I asked AI to clarify, and it gave me more specific, actionable items.
Then I asked AI to create an infographic that captured the CTAs visually. I ended up not using the infographic (it was generic), but having the list saved me from manually reading through a 15-page document multiple times.
Time saved: 2 hours (would have taken me all afternoon to read, extract, and organize these actions manually)
Prompt 2: Find Solutions for Non-Standard Situations
What It Does:
Helps you think through edge cases or situations that don't fit your standard processes.
The Scenario:
Within our support organization sits the operations team. This team doesn't work on customer cases, so they don't have metrics for things like Link Rate or Link Accuracy. However, they write knowledge base articles from time to time.
I needed to figure out how these team members could advance in our KCS competency framework when they don't do the typical work that framework measures.
The Prompt:
[Explain your situation and context in detail] As a [your role], identify ways to address this gap. Does [your proposed solution] make sense? Ask 2-3 clarifying questions if needed to help you formulate a plan.
My Actual Version:
Within the support org sits the operations team. This team doesn't work on cases and therefore won't have metrics for Link Rate, Link Accuracy, and PARs. However, the team will write KB articles from time to time. 5 out of the 9 candidates are from the Ops team. As a KCS Program Manager, identify ways that these team members can move up the KCS competency ladder. Does it make sense to move these people up the competency ladder? Ask 2-3 questions if needed to help you formulate a plan to address this gap.
How to Use It:
Explain your full situation with all relevant context
Frame your specific question or challenge
Explicitly ask AI to ask clarifying questions—this forces it to think through what information might be missing
Answer AI's questions to get more tailored recommendations
What Happened:
AI asked really good clarifying questions about the team's knowledge contribution patterns, the goals of the competency framework, and what metrics we could use beyond case-related ones. This helped me think through aspects I hadn't considered.
The recommendations were solid: alternative metrics like article quality scores, peer reviews, and proactive knowledge creation. Some I implemented, some I adapted, but the thinking process AI guided me through was valuable.
Time saved: 90 minutes (would have spent that time brainstorming alone or scheduling multiple meetings to talk it through)
Prompt 3: Convert Meeting Transcripts into SOPs
What It Does:
Takes messy meeting transcripts and transforms them into clean, structured standard operating procedures.
The Scenario:
I had a Zoom transcript from a training call where we walked through a new process. Instead of writing an SOP from scratch, I wanted to use the transcript as the basis.
The Prompt:
Convert this meeting transcript into a step-by-step Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). Format it as: 1. Purpose/Overview 2. Step-by-step instructions (numbered) 3. Key considerations or warnings 4. Related resources (if mentioned) Remove conversational elements and focus only on the procedural content. [paste cleaned transcript here]
How to Use It:
Get your Zoom/Teams/Google Meet transcript
CRITICAL STEP: Remove timestamps and "Speaker 1/Speaker 2" labels first—AI gets confused by these
Clean up obvious conversation fillers ("um," "you know," etc.) if there are many
Paste into AI with the prompt
Review the output for accuracy—AI sometimes misses important context or nuance
Edit to add your organizational specifics
What Happened:
First attempt failed because I left the timestamps in. The AI tried to incorporate them into the SOP, which was nonsensical.
Second attempt (after removing timestamps) worked beautifully. AI pulled out the key steps, organized them logically, and even identified warnings that we'd mentioned casually in conversation.
I still had to edit—AI didn't know our internal tool names or specific team structure. But it cut my drafting time dramatically.
Time saved: 3 hours (writing SOPs from scratch is tedious; this gave me a 70% complete draft to refine)
Prompt 4: Intelligent Email Triage and Cleanup
What It Does:
Helps you quickly identify which emails need immediate attention and which can be archived or deleted, especially when you're drowning in an overflowing inbox.
The Scenario:
I came back from a long weekend to 147 emails. I needed to quickly identify what actually needed my attention versus what could wait or be deleted.
The Initial Prompt:
Review these email subject lines and senders and identify which require immediate attention based on [your criteria: deadlines, sender priority, action required, etc.]. [paste list of emails, or give AI access to your inbox if your tool supports it]
What Happened (And the Follow-Up):
I used this with Gemini since it can access my Gmail. First, I asked it to show me emails requiring immediate attention. It responded that nothing was urgent, but suggested several emails that might be of interest.
This is where the prompt got interesting. I asked a follow-up:
Show me the dates of the emails you suggested I look at.
This simple follow-up was genius (if I do say so myself). Seeing the dates helped me decide: if it was from last week and nobody followed up, it's probably not actually important. If it's from today, I should look.I went further:
For emails older than 3 days that I haven't responded to, suggest which I can safely archive versus which might need a brief follow-up.
AI helped me identify:
34 emails I could immediately archive (newsletters I'd been meaning to read but never would)
12 emails that needed a quick "sorry for the delay" response
8 emails requiring actual work
The rest could wait
How to Use It:
Give AI access to your emails (if using Gemini) or paste subject lines and senders
Ask it to identify urgent/important emails based on your criteria
Key step: Ask for dates of suggested emails
Use date information to make fast archive/delete/respond decisions
For older emails, ask AI to categorize: needs response, can archive, or delete
Pro tip:
Be specific about YOUR definition of urgent. "Urgent for me means: from leadership, mentions a deadline, or is a direct question requiring my input."
Time saved: 2.5 hours (turned what would have been half a day of email processing into 45 minutes)
Prompt 5: Draft Project Delegation Messages
What It Does:
Creates clear, complete delegation messages that include all the context someone needs to take on a task successfully.
The Scenario:
I needed to delegate a research project to a team member but kept putting it off because I dreaded writing a clear brief. (This was before I learned that being vague was my problem, not theirs.)
The Prompt:
Help me write a delegation message for [task/project] to [team member name or role]. Include: - Clear objective (what success looks like) - Context (why this matters) - Specific deliverables - Timeline and milestones - Resources available - When/how I want updates - Decision points where they should check in with me Keep it friendly but clear. Here's the project: [describe what you need done]
How to Use It:
Think through what you actually need (this is the hard part—AI forces you to be clear)
Fill in the project description with as much detail as you have
Let AI structure it into a proper brief
Review and personalize—add any team-specific context AI wouldn't know
Before sending, ask yourself: "Could they start this without asking me any clarifying questions?"
What Happened:
I realized halfway through writing the prompt that I hadn't actually thought through what success looked like. AI couldn't help me until I was clear.
Once I figured out my actual requirements, AI structured them into a much better delegation message than I would have written. It included decision points I hadn't thought about and organized the information logically.
The team member started the project immediately with no clarifying questions. That never happens.
Time saved: 45 minutes (would have spent that writing a vague message, then 20 minutes on Slack clarifying what I meant)
The One That Failed Spectacularly
Not every prompt works. Here's one that wasted my time:
The Failed Prompt: "Make This Sound Professional"
Make this email sound more professional: [paste draft]What went wrong: AI made it "professional" by making it stiff, formal, and removing all personality. It sounded like a corporate robot wrote it. I sent it anyway (mistake), and got a response asking if I was okay because I "sounded unlike myself."
The lesson: "Professional" is too vague. AI defaulted to formal business speak from the 1990s.
Better version:
Rewrite this email to be clear and respectful while maintaining a warm, collaborative tone. Keep it concise but not terse. Specificity matters. Always.
What I Learned About Prompts This Week
After testing 20+ prompts, here are the patterns that separate the time-savers from the time-wasters:
Good prompts:
Include the format you want ("numbered steps," "bullet points," "paragraph summary")
Specify your constraints ("in 100 words or less," "by Friday")
Define your terms ("urgent for me means...")
Ask for questions if information is missing
Request specific structure or organization
Bad prompts:
Use vague adjectives ("make it better," "be professional")
Assume AI knows your context
Don't specify output format
Treat AI like a mind reader
Forget to verify accuracy
The Real Time-Saver:
The prompts themselves saved me maybe 2-3 hours. The other 7-8 hours came from finally being clear about what I needed BEFORE I typed anything. AI forced me to think through my requirements, which made everything faster—even when I didn't end up using AI's output.
How to Get Started
If you're new to this, don't try all five prompts this week. Pick ONE scenario that sounds familiar and try it.
My recommendation? Start with Prompt 4 (email triage) if your inbox is overwhelming, or Prompt 1 (action plans) if you have a document that needs to become action items.
Use the prompt exactly as written first. See what happens. Then modify it based on what you need.
And remember: these prompts work because they're specific about format, context, and desired outcome. That's not AI magic—that's just good communication.
The AI can't read your mind. But if you tell it exactly what you need, it's surprisingly good at helping you get there.
Coming next: Now that I've been using AI for a few weeks, I'm noticing something interesting—I'm NOT using it for everything anymore. Some tasks are actually faster without it. Next week, I'll share what I stopped using AI for and why.
Want these prompts in a downloadable format? click here
