What routine thing do you hate to do?

Or, as Appalachia Technologies’ Chris Swecker put it at a recent conference, “What part of your job sucks?”

Whether it takes longer than it should, it’s boring, or it’s just tedious, chances are you can figure out how to hand off that task to artificial intelligence.

How do I know that?

Because it’s one of the best ways I use AI.

The Tedious Example

I write a fresh blog post every week. It’s something which takes anywhere between two and four hours each time.

From getting an idea to creating an outline to nailing myself to the chair to write and all the way through publishing and promoting, the workflow is large. There are a lot of moving pieces to it.

To make sure I don’t miss a step, I use two Claude projects with custom instructions. Those instructions memorialize every mistake I’ve made with the blog, how I’ve fixed them, and also how I’ve taken the stuff I hate to do off my plate and put it onto Claude’s.

One of those tasks is making social sharing links which appear in my email newsletter.

Each social media site has a different way they want their links built. When I started the blog, I handcrafted the social links every week.

It sucked. I just wanted to schedule the newsletter send, and I was stuck tediously making sure three hyperlinks were accurate.

Now, the project instructions do this for me, and they hand them to me at the step in the process when I need them.

That’s one less boring thing for me to spend time on, and one more way I use AI.

The Fun Example

I celebrated a milestone birthday recently. On the day of the party, I wanted to make an Apple Music playlist of songs released in the year I was born, but I didn’t have hours to search for songs then add each one to a playlist.

AI did that for me.

I started a conversation in Claude. It selected songs. We revised the playlist, and then it used its browser extension to work in Apple Music.

Claude didn’t have free rein in my web browser, by the way. It was limited to two tabs; one for Claude and one for Apple Music. It couldn’t touch anything else.

Regardless, seeing the cursor move around on the screen, the mouse clicks, and the songs add to the playlist was almost a little magical. I watched it for a while, then went to prepare for our guests.

When I went back to the computer, the playlist was done with no further work needed by me.

Drudgery delegated. Win-win.

How To Do This

While I do not suggest you hand over control of your entire computer or inbox or any system to an artificial intelligence, there are ways to achieve some of the same types of benefits. And you don’t have to be a coder or developer to do it.

One suggestion is to use your AI of choice, create a project or notebook, and begin a conversation explaining what you’re trying to accomplish. That could look something like this:

“I do [task] every week and I hate it. Interview me so you can understand all the parts and component pieces with the goal of figuring out how I can have you do it for me.”

While you will likely need to go through some trial and error in the process, if you have a clear idea of what the final outcome should look and act like, this is an effective approach.

The second suggestion is to schedule a free, 15-minute conversation with me. We’ll talk about what you’re trying to achieve, the tool you want to use, and if I can help you.

If it’s something straightforward, you may get the answer you need in that call. If not, you’ll know what would be involved very quickly.

You don’t have to keep doing the same mind-numbing tasks over and over again. Whether you solve it yourself or connect with me, there’s a better way.