Take ten minutes and write down the five tasks that eat the most time in your typical week. Be specific: not "email," but "writing replies to routine scheduling requests." Not "meetings," but "turning my meeting notes into minutes."
Now mark each one: D if it's mostly drafting/formatting/summarizing (AI's sweet spot), or J if it's mostly judgment, relationships, or coordination (yours).
Keep this list. It's the seed of your personal AI plan, and we'll use it directly in Chapters 6 through 12. Most readers find three or more D's on their list — that's where your hours are coming back from.
Prompt Pack: Understanding Your Own Role
Here are tasks from my workweek: [PASTE YOUR TASK AUDIT LIST]. For each, tell me whether AI tools could help with a first draft or speed it up, and briefly how. Be realistic — tell me where AI would NOT help much, too.
I spend roughly [X] hours per week on [TASK, e.g., 'summarizing long email threads for my manager']. If a tool could cut that time in half, walk me through what I could realistically reclaim per month and per year.
I'm an [YOUR ROLE, e.g., 'executive assistant'] with [X] years of experience. List the skills from this role that become MORE valuable as offices adopt AI tools, and explain why in one sentence each.
Give me three historical examples of office technology that people feared would eliminate administrative jobs, and describe what actually happened to the people who learned the tool early.
Play the skeptic. Give me the five strongest reasons an experienced administrative professional might reasonably distrust AI tools — then, for each, tell me what would address that concern.
Based on this list of my weekly tasks [PASTE LIST], which ONE task would you recommend I try using AI on first? Pick the one with the best combination of time saved and low risk if the result needs heavy editing. Explain your pick.