5 AI Tools To Make Your Job Easier Today - SWI #26

Read time: 4 mins

Are you hearing about AI all over the place?

Whether it’s in the news, on social media, or at the ‘water cooler’, AI is a HOT topic.

But it’s also hard to get a handle on what to DO with it all:

• What does it mean for me, if anything?
• Can I use AI now for something actually useful?
• Do I need to worry about my job being replaced by AI? If so, when? And what should I do about it?!!!
  
  

We've been keeping tabs on how AI has been evolving since ChatGPT launched in Nov 2022 and spent hundreds of hours researching these topics, so you don't have to.

And since there’s so much to share, we're doing a 3-part AI series to answer these questions.

Today we're sharing Part 1: 5 AI tools to make your job easier today.

Let's get into it:

Who couldn’t use a few extra hours in the day?

You've almost certainly already experienced AI in some capacity, from Alexa and Siri on your phone to chatbots on websites.

We wanted to highlight new tools that will free up your time and increase your productivity.

We’ve used our extra time to build our free Unlock Your Network course and get more sleep.

What would you do with more time?

Note: We’re not sponsored by any of these apps, we're just sharing because they’re cool and will help.

5 AI PRODUCTIVITY USE CASES THAT CAN HELP YOU TODAY

1. Make meetings more effective

Imagine if your important meetings were transcribed for you.


What if then, from the transcription, action items were identified, popped into your calendar, and added to the agenda for future meetings?

This is possible today.

Check out Vowel for your conference calls, then use Zapier to automate your actions.

2. Get control of your inbox

If you’re like us and want to spend the least amount of time possible on your emails, AND have an under-control inbox, then check out Shortwave or Microsoft 365 CoPilot*functionality.

These tools can draft emails in your tone of voice and style, summarise long email threads, prepare suggested replies, and help you catch up on important action items.

Note: Microsoft 365 CoPilot is not widely available yet. In May, they launched an 'early access' program for an initial set of 600 customers to continue its beta testing.

3. Get control of your calendar

We really enjoy using Calendly to make managing our calendars easy.

First, we block out ‘uninterrupted work’ hours, then choose what times to make available for others to book meetings and coaching sessions with us.

We don't get double booked, never run back-to-back meetings, and all the pre- and post-meeting prompts are automated (reminder text messages, thank you emails, etc).

We also like how Clockwise can optimise your entire team’s schedules to create more time in everyone’s day.

4. Do your research faster

There is so much information on the internet, and it can take a LOT of time to sift through everything to find what you need.

If this is a challenge for you, try using Notion AI to quickly summarise websites and pages of content into a few dot points.

With Explainpaper, you can upload a research paper, highlight confusing text, and get an explanation.

We wish we had this when Lynne’s brother shared his Ph.D. dissertation with us – maybe we’d understand something about the vortex dynamics of laminar separation bubbles.

5. Generate and test ideas

If you’re out of ideas or just want to test your thinking, you can leverage ChatGPT, Google Bard, or another natural language processing tool driven by AI technology.

These tools use vast amounts of information from the internet, including websites, books, and news articles to create responses to your questions and prompts – which can provide a rich source of ideas when you’re stuck on questions like:

• "What are the most common challenges people face when..."
• "What are the biggest risks of..."
• "What are the top tips for..."
• “What process should I follow to…”

We use this all the time to strengthen and extend our ideas. Give it a go and see what you can learn.

There you have it!

5 simple use cases to give you back time and increase your productivity.

We're in the very early stages of this technology, but we hope this shows you that trying out AI tools today can come in handy.

Plus, AI is not going anywhere.

Jump in now and get ahead of the curve.

Next week we’re sharing how you can use AI to secure your next role or big opportunity.

For the action takers:

1) Choose 1 of the tools above (or from the handy TLDR list below) and test it out! Let us know how you go.

2) Reach out if you want to chat about how AI can help you in your current or future role.

Speak soon,

Lynne and Steve

P.S. Proud moment 🤗👇

In only a few days since it launched, 150+ people have joined our FREE Unlock Your Network course. If you want to accelerate your career or business growth, we'd love for you to join us here .

TLDR

• AI is here and but can be hard to sift through what it all means, and what’s actually useful.
• To help, we’re covering AI in a 3-week newsletter series.
• You can use AI tools NOW to help you be more productive.
• We suggest trying:

1. Vowel and Zapier for more productive meetings
2. Shortwave and Microsoft 365 CoPilot for managing your inbox
3. Calendly and Clockwise for managing your calendar
4. Notion and Explainpaper to make research easier
5. ChatGPT and Google Bard for generating and testing ideas

• Try one of them this week and let us know how you go!

Extra Resources

For a detailed but easy-to-read primer on the basics of AI, this recent article is an excellent resource: Age of AI: Everything you need to know about artificial intelligence

When you're ready, here's how we can support you further:

▶ Join the Unlock Your Network course

Our free 7-day course will help you learn the strategy, tools, and tactics to build a network that creates opportunities for you.

▶ Work with us

We offer coaching & mentoring to help professionals build impactful careers and businesses. Enquire here .