In my post in response to the Day 14 Productivity Challenge, I provided an example of a time blocking schedule with built in Pomodoros that I had generated with AI. A subscriber asked if I could provide step-by-step instruction on how to create their own schedule, so here you go. While there are several steps, it really only takes me about five minutes to run through these steps – much faster than I could figure it all out myself with the changing daily appointments.

ChatGPT

First, you have to have access to an AI program. Personally, professionally, and educationally, I use different version of ChatGPT. However, to make these instructions as user-friendly and cost-effective as possible, I have developed these instructions to work with the free version of ChatGPT, although I have personally opted to upgrade to the paid version. (This post is NOT being sponsored by ChatGPT.)

Repeat Daily

ChatGPT does not retain information from day-to-day, so I recommend creating a document in Word or Notion with a few basic things that you can copy and paste every day for your core schedule. This way you will only have to add any specific appointments or special tasks unique to that day.

I use Notion to have a set “copy and paste” text, followed by additional instructions. If you include too many instructions, ChatGPT struggles to process what you want done and does strange things like scheduling dinner prep for 10:00 in the morning!

Prompt 1: Please create a personalized daily schedule for me that incorporates time blocking and the Pomodoro Technique:

My scheduled times are:
5:00 am Wake Up and Work Out
6:00 am to 7:00 am Personal Hygiene Self Care
7:15 am to 8:15 am Morning School Commute
8:30 am Professional Work Start
1:00 pm Lunch
7:30 pm Dinner
9:00 pm Bedtime

My primary daily responsibilities include:
Professional Work

My secondary daily responsibilities include:
Zone Cleaning
Dinner Prep
Liberty University Classwork

Refining the Results

For some reason, the first schedule will provide the time blocks, but no the Pomodoro, so you have to ask for that to be broken out.

Prompt 2: Please break out each Pomodoro.

Now, you have to tell ChatGPT to combine the first time block schedule with the second time block schedule.

Prompt 3: Can you please combine the two schedules into one cohesive schedule with the time block and the pomodoros?

ChatGPT will put in some extra blocks of time. By using this prompt, it will put in some set things to do to move your goals forward.

Prompt 4: Can you assign to breaks or unassigned pomodoros different tasks associated with the following goals: [a single paragraph of goals].

Customizing for the Specific Day

Finally, you can ask ChatGPT to adjust your schedule for specific appointments for that day. For this example, I had the following adjustment:

3:00 pm to 4:00 pm Afternoon School Commute
4:00 pm to 7:30 pm Basketball Game

Prompt 5: Can you adjust the schedule to work with these appointments: [list appointments].

Final Recommendations

Look at the schedule and see if anything looks wrong or needs to be tweaked. In my example, ChatGPT seemed to think that I worked at the school because I had used the word “commute.” I redefined that commute meant drive to school and return home.

It also struggled with the concept of driving to the school, attending a basketball game, and returning home. So to help ChatGPT, I combined it into one command.

Prompt 6: Please adjust this schedule to account for a school basketball game from 3:00 pm to 7:30 pm.

This resulted in a better schedule, but ChatGPT assumed that I would need to prepare for the basketball game. I told ChatGPT how to replace the odd time.

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This ultimately gave me this schedule:

5:00 am – 5:25 am: Pomodoro 1 (Workout)
Work out for 25 minutes.
5-minute break.

5:30 am – 5:55 am: Pomodoro 2 (Workout)
Work out for 25 minutes.
5-minute break.

6:00 am – 7:00 am: Personal Hygiene Self Care

7:15 am – 8:15 am: Morning School Commute

8:30 am – 8:55 am: Pomodoro 3 (Professional Work)
Start your professional work session.
Work for 25 minutes.
5-minute break.

9:00 am – 9:25 am: Pomodoro 4 (Professional Work)
Work for 25 minutes.
5-minute break.

9:30 am – 9:55 am: Pomodoro 5 (Professional Work)
Work for 25 minutes.
5-minute break.

10:00 am – 11:30 am: Professional Work (Continued)

11:30 am – 11:45 am: Short Break
Take a 15-minute break to relax, stretch, and recharge.

11:45 am – 12:10 pm: Pomodoro 6 (Professional Work)
Resume your professional work.
Work for 25 minutes.
5-minute break.

12:15 pm – 12:40 pm: Pomodoro 7 (Professional Work)
Work for 25 minutes.
5-minute break.

12:45 pm – 1:00 pm: Pomodoro 8 (Professional Work)
Work for 15 minutes (shortened to accommodate lunch break).
5-minute break.

1:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Lunch

1:30 pm – 3:00 pm: Pomodoro for Professional Work

3:00 pm – 7:30 pm: School Basketball Game
Enjoy your basketball game.

7:30 pm – 8:00 pm: Dinner

8:00 pm – 8:30 pm: Ph.D. Dissertation Research
Spend 30 minutes documenting research for your Ph.D. dissertation.

8:30 pm – 9:00 pm: Evening Relaxation

9:00 pm: Bedtime

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I hope that this helps and give you some ideas on how to use AI to take tasks that can require a fair amount of time to complete those tasks quickly. I consider AI to be my personal assistant, so to speak, communicating to me my daily schedule, after I tell it what I want it to do, of course.

I hope that you find this helpful. Let me know if you have any questions. I am more than happy to help and share.