*Thisarticle is based on a YouTube video by Sophie Hundertmark, an expert in the use of artificial intelligence with a focus on chatbots and strategic AI applications in companies and public institutions. Sophie is a researcher and lecturer at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and is doing her doctorate in Conversational AI at the University of Fribourg. The blog text was created using a custom GPT model that was trained on Sophie’s video content, language style and expertise. The result is well-founded, up-to-date articles based on Sophie Hundertmark‘s own expertise.
You can find the link to the video at the end of this article.
Artificial intelligence has long been capable of more than just writing texts. AI tools such as ChatGPT, SwissGPT, Gemini or Perplexity help to make administrative tasks more efficient, to better follow up meetings or even to facilitate difficult communication, especially in everyday working life.
In this post, I’ll show you five simple but extremely helpful weekly prompts that you can use to save time, create structure and make your working day more productive.
Important: AI should support you – not replace you. That’s why it’s always worth examining results critically and making a conscious decision about which tasks you actually want to delegate to an AI assistant.
Summarize long email histories in just a few seconds
Who hasn’t experienced it: an email history gets longer and longer, several people are involved and at some point you completely lose track. It quickly becomes confusing, especially when it comes to projects, appointments or organizational issues.
This is exactly where a very simple prompt can be enormously helpful.
The prompt reads:
“Please summarize the key points of the email.”
Often that’s all you need.
You can insert the complete email history including replies, forwards and signatures into an AI tool. The AI then analyzes the content and creates a compact summary.
The following are particularly helpful:
- Summaries of decisions
- Appointments
- Open questions
- Allocation of tasks
- Next steps
This saves you an enormous amount of time, especially in longer conversations with several participants.
Caution with sensitive data
Data protection is particularly important in this use case.
As soon as personal information, customer data or confidential content is included in the email history, you should be careful. Public AI tools such as ChatGPT are not always suitable for sensitive data.
Alternatives such as SwissGPT or data protection-oriented solutions such as Peak Privacy may make more sense here.
Another option is to anonymize important information before uploading.
Using AI to find out which tasks you can automate
Many people are no longer asking themselves whether AI is helpful, but rather: What specific tasks should I use it for?
This is exactly what this Weekly Prompt is for.
The prompt reads:
“I would like to make my day-to-day work more efficient and use ChatGPT as support. Please analyze my daily tasks and find out which of them can be facilitated and optimized by ChatGPT. Ask me specific questions to better understand my activities. Then give me a list of specific use cases for ChatGPT in my job and explain how I can use it optimally.”
The exciting thing is that the AI doesn’t just provide you with general tips, but starts by gaining a better understanding of your day-to-day work.
This often results in very specific and individual application possibilities.
For example:
- Create summaries
- Formulating e-mails
- Prioritize tasks
- Structure content
- Conduct brainstorming sessions
- Prepare documentation
- Post-processing meetings
Good results need good answers
This prompt works particularly well if you take the time to ask the AI questions.
The better you describe your tasks, the more concrete and helpful the proposed use cases will be.
Nevertheless, the same applies here: Not every proposed automation is automatically useful.
Examine critically:
- Which processes do you really want to automate?
- Where do you actually save time?
- Where does human communication remain important?
- Which tasks contain sensitive information?
AI should relieve you – but not take over your decisions.
Automatically summarize meeting transcripts
Video conferencing tools such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams now often offer automatic transcripts of meetings.
The problem is that these transcripts are often long, unstructured and difficult to read.
People interrupt each other, topics jump back and forth and in the end it is often unclear what was actually decided.
AI can also be extremely helpful here.
One possible prompt is:
“Here is the transcript of a meeting. Please provide me with a summary of the meeting in keywords. In addition, make me a list of all the important next steps and tasks that we discussed in the meeting.”
The advantages:
- quick summaries
- Clear task lists
- Better follow-up
- fewer misunderstandings
- Simpler documentation
You can also expand the prompt.
For example:
- with introduction and conclusion
- as continuous text instead of bullet points
- sorted by topic
- with responsibilities
- with deadlines
Taking data protection particularly seriously at meetings
Meetings in particular often contain confidential information.
These include:
- Personnel data
- Customer meetings
- strategic decisions
- Internal planning
- Financial information
It is therefore worth using data protection-friendly AI solutions or anonymizing sensitive content in advance.
And very importantly, an AI summary should always be critically reviewed.
Controlled:
- Are the statements correct?
- Were tasks recognized correctly?
- Is important information missing?
- Are responsibilities correctly presented?
Formulate friendly rejections with AI
Rejections are part of everyday working life – even if they are often unpleasant.
Whether it’s a cooperation request, interview, project request or appointment: Sometimes you have to say no in order to be able to work in a focused manner.
AI can also provide support here.
One possible prompt is:
“You are my professional communication assistant. Write a friendly and respectful rejection to the following request. The aim of the reply is to express appreciation, formulate a clear but polite rejection and, if necessary, offer an alternative or a perspective.”
You can also define additional variables:
- Desired tone of voice
- Language
- I or we perspective
- Short personal justification
- formal or casual
This results in significantly more individualized answers instead of generic standard texts.
Appreciation remains crucial
The tone is crucial, especially when it comes to rejections.
An AI can help you formulate, but the actual attitude behind it should always come from you.
Appreciation, respect and honesty remain key components of good communication.
It is therefore worth customizing the generated texts once again.
Prioritize tasks with AI
Just before vacation periods or stressful weeks, the same question often arises:
What is really important?
AI can also help with the prioritization of tasks.
However, it is not enough to simply upload a to-do list.
The AI should first understand:
- What goals you are pursuing
- Which tasks are particularly important
- What deadlines exist
- Which tasks can be delegated
- Which tasks should perhaps even be deleted
A helpful prompt is:
“I would like to prioritize my tasks for this week. Please ask me smart questions to help me identify and prioritize my most important goals and to-dos. Consider my overarching goals, realistic timeframe, potential impact and tasks that could be delegated, postponed or canceled.”
You can then ask the AI to create a structured priority list.
For example with categories such as:
- Highest priority
- Important, but not urgent
- delegate or postpone
The simple variant for quick prioritization
If you have less time, you can also use a shorter prompt.
For example:
“Here are my tasks for this week. Please analyze them based on impact, urgency and personal effort and prioritize them. Also help me delegate or cancel tasks.”
This approach can also be very helpful – especially if the AI already knows you and your way of working a little better.
AI as support – not as a replacement
All these examples show how versatile AI can now be used in everyday working life.
AI is particularly helpful for:
- Structuring
- Summaries
- Prioritization
- Formulations
- Collections of ideas
- Documentations
- Organization
Nevertheless, the responsibility always remains with you.
Therefore:
- Check results
- Observe data protection
- Questioning content
- Using AI consciously
Those who integrate AI sensibly can not only save time, but often also work in a more focused and relaxed manner.
Conclusion
The best AI prompts don’t have to be complicated.
A few clear instructions are often enough to obtain helpful results from long email histories, meeting transcripts or task lists.
The most important thing is:
- Clear objective
- good inputs
- Critical examination of the results
- Conscious handling of sensitive data
When you start using AI specifically for recurring administrative tasks, you will quickly realize how much potential these tools have.
Any further questions?
Do you have any questions? I am happy to support you, act as a sparring partner and answer your questions. I am always happy to receive your messages, preferably by WhatsApp message or e-mail.
