We’ve come a long way from skimming the pages of encyclopedias to find information. All it takes nowadays is a few clickety-clacks, and we’ve got an endless pit of insights (if you’re using your phone or a tablet, it’s literally at your fingertips). This is all thanks to artificial intelligence, better known as AI.
This technology is supposed to make our lives easier. So the real questions come down to this: how does AI help with productivity? What can it do for us? And why should we use it?
All are valid, and all are answered by Andri Peetso, the co-founder of Conturata AI and Whomesome. “Think of it as your little virtual assistant,” he said in a three-day Mindvalley workshop on mastering ChatGPT (Members can watch the recording on the Mindvalley app).
So if productivity is what you’re searching for, AI can be the friend you never knew you needed.
How does AI help with productivity?
Think of AI, and what comes to mind? Perhaps it’s the memoji on your iPhones, the metaverse, or maybe the Terminator.
All of the above are versions of artificial intelligence, definitely. However, they’re more for entertainment (or, in the case of the Terminator, for extinction).
For everyday situations, how can AI contribute to your productivity? There are so many ways—from automating tasks to analyzing data to generating ideas. Here are seven examples of how AI can make your life a whole lot easier.
1. AI can help with tasks like emails
Tasks can be menial. Take emails, for example—you can love them or you can absolutely hate them. And more than we really care to admit, we often spend way too much time crafting them.
According to a 2022 survey on email usage and its impact on productivity and well-being, 67% of people feel overwhelmed by their inboxes. Who can blame them, though, with the majority using email as the primary source of internal communication at work? In addition to the necessary emails, there are subscriptions and the never-ending junk mail from who knows where to sort through.
Andri explained how using AI, such as ChatGPT, can help you check off those menial tasks, from emails to text messages. And with that kind of productivity, it can save you time and effort, so you can move on to other things that require your attention.
2. AI can help you with copywriting
Developing creative ideas and churning them out is the essence of copywriting. But, as with everything in life, writer’s block can happen.
One study analyzing writer’s block found that there are four causes for this condition:
- Physiological: This can stem from stress, anxiety, intense affective states (like depression or grief), and burnout or fatigue.
- Motivational: This is due to fear of criticism or rejection or loss of enjoyment for writing.
- Cognitive: Relating to the technical aspects of writing rather than lack of inspiration, this stems from being focused on perfection, having a fixed idea of what you want to say, and not using time management techniques like time blocking.
- Behavioral: This is associated with procrastination, being too busy to sit down and write, a routine change, or not sticking to a structured schedule.
Sure, you can go for a walk, take a nap, or do some yoga to boost productivity. But sooner or later, you know that the creative slump is going to happen again.
When it comes to copywriting without AI, Andri (and pretty much all of the writers at Mindvalley) find that it helps to bounce ideas off of someone. But now, with ChatGPT, the assistance of AI can help with both creating content and writing flow.
“As a sales copywriter, implementing AI into my workflow has been an absolute game changer,” says Goutaman Ramachandran, a copywriter specialist for Mindvalley. “It’s significantly reduced my work and accelerated my delivery time, and it’s also allowed for precious bandwidth to focus on higher-level initiatives.”
3. AI can give you personalized recommendations
Writing your emails and writing content for you only scratches the surface of what artificial intelligence, like ChatGPT, can do. Now, how does AI help with productivity when it comes to something a little bit more complex?
One example Andri gives in the Mindvalley workshop is a prompt for a dinner menu. Here’s what it looked like:
Design a menu for tonight’s dinner. There are 20 guests in total. Most of them eat mostly meat; two people are on an autoimmune paleo diet, and one is following the GAPS diet. There are also four vegans, two pescatarians, and one person who only eats bananas. Please make the menu in such a way that we don’t have to buy too many different ingredients.
ChatGPT is capable of understanding and making connections about any topic that has been written about somewhere.
— Andri Peetso, co-founder of Conturata AI and Whomesome
So AI can whip up a delicious course based on what you asked.
And the best part? It takes what productivity planner tools can do and takes it to a whole other level. For instance, it can also list the groceries you’d need to buy and sort them by aisle to make shopping easier and more efficient.
4. AI can help format and organize data
Data analysts and scientists are always in demand. In fact, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, job openings for these particular roles are expected to increase by 23% between 2021 and 2031.
The thing is, data analysis takes a set of skills. So one of the things AI can help you do is off-load the burden.
“Let’s say you have 20 different pages of Excel and tens of thousands of lines of data, and you want to do something [with it],” says Andri. “Just ask ChatGPT: ‘Hey, I have this data; I have this table; it does this and this and this; it has this much data… but now I want to do this. How do I do it?’”
The incredible thing about AI is that it’s multi-functional. Not only can it analyze the data you have, but it can also format and organize it in any way you like, such as in tables.
5. AI can help you with coding
If you’re a coder, or even if you’re not, AI’s got your back. According to Andri, this type of intelligence can understand any programming language and, in turn, code whatever you need it to.
For more junior developers, AI, like ChatGPT, is an amazing companion. “It can understand, explain, and write code, and it can help you figure things out when you’re completely lost and have no idea where to begin,” he says.
Now, for more professional, hard-core coders, Andri explains there are ways to leverage AI instead of looking at it as a career killer. For instance, you can ask ChatGPT for general direction and then use GitHub Copilot to assist with writing code.
If you know nothing about coding, you can still make an iPhone app. Or if you’re a coding master, in the words of Andri, “imagine the possibilities.”
6. AI can help create custom graphics
As humans, we love good visual content. Research even suggests that it can help us remember important information more effectively. Additionally, one study by HubSpot found that businesses that posted more photos on their Facebook pages had better engagement than those that didn’t.
Where does AI fit into all this? There are programs, like Midjourney, that are designed to create AI-generated art. Just specify what you’re looking for, and it’ll provide you with graphics customized to your prompts.
Mindvalley’s no stranger to AI art. In fact, many of our more recent quest covers were inspired by designs generated by AI.
“Tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney are like partners in creativity,” says Fariz Salleh, head of Mindvalley’s Media Design team. They allow him to quickly bounce ideas and validate concepts and visuals from his mind to something tangible.
He adds, “I do not view the output that’s created by AI as the final product, but instead, they are tools that help to cultivate and bring together the ideas in my mind so that I’ll be able to further enhance and polish my own creations from scratch.”
The days of having to create custom graphics from scratch are long gone. And even the days of scratching your head to figure out where to begin.
7. AI can help you narrow down options when there are too many
Imagine you’re going on a trip to Spain with friends. Which airlines should you take? Where should you stay? What should you check out (or not) during that limited time? What are the best deals?
Put those questions into any search engine, and we know all too well that what we get back is too many options. It leaves many of us not knowing what to look for first or how to focus on any one specific thing.
Wide-eyed and stupefied? No doubt. Even a survey by global media agency Carat reported that “41% of people feel overwhelmed by the wealth of choices on the web, making it hard for them to make purchase decisions.”
Now, put those questions into an AI program. It can “quickly cull the options using sophisticated tools and return the best two or three options,” according to Nir Eyal, habit-forming expert and trainer of Mindvalley’s Becoming Focused and Indistractable Quest, in an article on his website.
While trip itineraries are just one way AI can help narrow down options. Nir adds, “There are plenty of opportunities to use [it] where the user has to weed through too many choices, particularly in enterprise applications.”
Are there any limitations to AI?
It’s important to remember that we’re only at the cusp of artificial intelligence. So there’s bound to have certain limitations to what it can do.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when you’re using AI:
- Get familiar with how the AI program works so you can best leverage it. “In order to master something, like really master something, and to get good at something,” says Andri, “you have to at least have a rough understanding of how the thing you’re trying to master works.”
- Don’t simply copy and paste. “The best practice [for copywriting] is to always use ChatGPT as a writing assistant,” he says, adding that it’s best to rephrase it in your own words. “One very pragmatic reason for this is AI detectors, which can tell when something has been written by AI.”
- Some programs have a knowledge cut-off date. Because AI is human-made, it can’t always be up-to-date. ChatGPT, even, has a “limited knowledge of the world and events after 2021,” as per its website.
- It can give you answers that aren’t entirely factual. One example Andri gave in the workshop is this prompt for ChatGPT: “What is 10 + 10?” The AI replied with an answer of 20. However, when Andri said that the answer was incorrect and it was actually 30, the AI agreed.
- Understand that AI is not perfect. There are times when the AI has generated incorrect information. Case in point: Google’s parent company, Alphabet, made a huge blunder when its conversational bot, Gemini (previously known as Bard) shelled out the wrong information, leading to a $100 billion loss in market value.
Without a doubt, there are challenges and limitations to AI’s capabilities. It’s also without doubt, however, that there are major potential benefits to using it to boost our productivity.
Get more done, AI-style
Artificial intelligence (AI) is an indispensable tool. And programs like ChatGPT are total game-changers.
It’s understandable that new things can be scary. However, when you take the time to understand it and learn how to work with it, you can level up your productivity and be indistractable.
A great way to get there is at Mindvalley.
Sign up for free for the Mindvalley AI Summit (July 12-14, 2024).
You’ll learn from Andri Peetso, the founder of Conturata-AI, a leading-edge educational platform for AI. After self-teaching himself code in 2 weeks while having COVID, Andri is now a sought-after expert in the fields of AI, visual creation, and web development with a prestigious clientele that includes various government agencies.
You’ll learn from Manon Dave, an artist and musician who’s responsible for two of Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2022, including the ROLI Seaboard Keyboard for musicians, and more recently, his song “Biggest,” rapped by Idris Elba, was selected for the iPhone 14 ad. Manon will teach you how to use AI to generate art and music.
You’ll learn from Vishen Lakhiani, the founder of Mindvalley, who scaled his company to $100 million in revenue. As a CEO and entrepreneur, he’s applied AI to effectively shave off one and a half days of his work week, giving him increased amounts of freedom and since January 31st, when he started using AI deeply in his work.
We’re no longer preparing for the future. We’re living it.
Welcome in.
