"Technology is best when it brings people more time to do what matters most."Â
Matt Mullenweg
It is Sunday, so it seems a good day to make a confession. 😂
Sometimes projects sit on my desk for days or weeks because I know they'll be time-consuming and tedious.
Recently, I had two of those projects staring me in the face. Neither one was particularly difficult. I simply did not want to spend the hours necessary to get them done.
Then I remembered I had a very capable assistant sitting right on my computer.
Project #1: Updating Our Golf Association Documents
As the President of the Apple Valley Women's Golf Association, I was responsible for updating our Rules & Regulations and our By-Laws. It hadn't been done for over 20 years
There was just one problem.
The only copies available were paper copies.
My first thought was, "Oh great. I have to retype these entire documents before I can even begin making the changes."
I am a fast typist, but I was still dreading it.
Then a light bulb went off.
I took photos of every page and uploaded them to ChatGPT. I asked it to convert the documents into an editable Word document.
BOOM.
Within minutes, I had clean digital copies that I could easily edit.
Instead of spending an entire day retyping page after page, I spent about an hour reviewing the documents, making the necessary changes, and formatting them.
Done!
Project #2: Building a Season Schedule
The second project involved creating the season schedule for our six golf teams. There are six golf clubs involved, and each club has six players, playing in teams of two.Â
If you've ever tried to create a schedule with multiple teams, locations, and dates, you know it can be like putting together a puzzle.
I needed six teams (with six players each) matched against one other team each month.
No team could play the same opponent more than once during the season.
I also had to be sure that no team played a host team more than once.
This was another project I had been putting off for weeks.
Finally, I opened ChatGPT and entered all of the teams, dates, locations, and scheduling requirements.
A few minutes later, I had a complete schedule.
Not only did it save me a massive amount of time, but it also spared me the mental gymnastics of trying to track all the combinations myself.
The Real Lesson
What strikes me is that neither of these projects involved writing blog posts, creating images, or any of the things we've been discussing about how artificial intelligence can save us time.
Instead, AI helped me solve practical, everyday problems from my volunteer work.
It converted paper documents into editable files.
It organized a complex schedule based on specific guidelines.
Most importantly, it eliminated hours of tedious work.
I am finding that the real power of AI is not replacing people. It helps people complete tasks faster so they can spend more time on the things they actually enjoy.
I suspect many of us have projects sitting on our desks right now that we've been avoiding because they seem overwhelming or time-consuming.
Before you tackle them the hard way, ask yourself one question:
"Could AI help me do this?"
You might be surprised by the answer.
Your Turn
Have you used AI to solve a practical problem in your personal life and/or volunteer work? What task did it save you from doing the hard way? Â
Note: I have other examples, but these are the two I was dreading the most.
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