Tips & tricks

A second charger lives in your bag

One charger stays at your desk, a second one lives permanently in your bag. A few bucks buys the end of endless repacking and forgetting.

A docking station: one cable and you're working

Monitor, keyboard, network, charging — all through a single USB-C cable. Connecting your laptop stops being a five-minute ritual.

A checklist for anything you do a second time

Client onboarding, publishing an article, the monthly close — a repeated process without a checklist means forgetting something, every time.

The weekly review: 30 minutes that run your whole week

On Friday or Sunday, go through your calendar, tasks, and notes — close out loose ends, plan three priorities. Monday starts with clarity.

Three tasks for the day: pick in the morning, check in the evening

Not a list of twenty items, but three things that absolutely must get done today. Everything else is a bonus.

Timeboxing: put your tasks straight into the calendar

A task with no time attached is just a wish. Drag your tasks into concrete calendar slots — and give your day a budget, like money.

The shutdown ritual: close the day so it doesn't follow you

Five minutes at the end of work: write down loose ends, glance at tomorrow, close the laptop. Work stays at work — even in your head.

Batch similar tasks: emails with emails, calls with calls

Switching between types of work costs energy. Grouping similar tasks into blocks saves dozens of minutes a day.

Proposal, contract, and invoice templates: do it once, properly

Every proposal written from scratch is an hour of lost time. A template with marked spots to fill in cuts it to ten minutes.

The Friday admin block: invoicing, timesheets, mail

Ninety minutes on Friday for all your admin at once — instead of scattered nagging all week long.

Answer clients in windows, not on demand

A reply within 24 hours is the professional standard. A reply within 5 minutes is a bar you can never lower again.

Your own deadline: two days before the real one

Submit by your own D−2 deadline. You get a buffer for review, printer trouble, illness — and a calm night's sleep.

In-depth guide · 20 min

A prompt library: don't rewrite what already works

A complete guide with prompts: where to keep a library, how to version and improve prompts, how to share them in a team — and ten every library needs.

In-depth guide · 19 min

Dictate your thoughts, let AI turn them into text

A complete guide with prompts: how to dictate a usable transcript, tidy it into an email or notes with one prompt, and turn commutes into writing time.

In-depth guide · 19 min

Data Analysis with AI: From CSV to a Conclusion You Can Defend

A guide with prompts: why a language model must not do the math in chat, how to turn a table into a script that recalculates, and how not to overreach.

In-depth guide · 18 min

Your first conversation with AI: the complete guide for absolute beginners

A complete guide with copy-paste prompts: how to pick a tool, what to type into the first empty box, and telling a good answer from plausible nonsense.

In-depth guide · 17 min

Prepping for a negotiation in twenty minutes: research, arguments, BATNA, and rehearsal

A guide with prompts: research the other side in twenty minutes, build arguments and a walk-away point, rehearse the hardest part, and get a one-pager.

In-depth guide · 17 min

Let AI find the holes in your proposal

A complete guide with prompts for hard critique: untraining AI from agreeing with you, decision premortems, red-teaming a proposal — and when to ignore it.

In-depth guide · 17 min

Custom instructions: set up AI once, it applies forever

A complete guide to standing instructions: what belongs in them, how they differ from a Project, testing them — and ready sets for common professions.

In-depth guide · 23 min

Small scripts without coding: AI writes them for you

A complete guide with prompts: get a script written and explained, run it safely on a copy of your data, and build a tool library — without writing code.

In-depth guide · 20 min

Projects in AI: upload context once, not every time

A complete guide with prompts: what to upload to a Project, how to write its instructions, when to start a new one, and maintenance so it doesn't lie.

In-depth guide · 14 min

Excel and Sheets with AI: Formulas, Errors, Structure, and Macros

A complete guide with prompts: describe a formula in plain words and get a working fix, debug errors, design a table that holds, and when to use a macro.

In-depth guide · 17 min

Show AI a sample: the complete guide to working with examples

A complete guide with prompts: why one example beats a thousand words of instructions, when one or three, ready templates, and your own style bank.

In-depth guide · 18 min

AI translates with tone, not just words

A guide with prompts: steering translation with your own samples, translation versus localization, back-translation checks, and glossary workflows.

In-depth guide · 19 min

The first answer is a draft: the complete guide to iterating with AI

A complete guide with prompts: phrases for sharpening, narrowing, and shifting tone, variants instead of guessing, and when to scrap a chat and restart.

In-depth guide · 15 min

AI writes the first draft, you write the final one

A guide with prompts: the brief method for a one-minute draft, ready asks for the hardest email types, teaching AI your voice, and a pre-send check.

Track your week: where your time actually goes

A week with a time tracker (Toggl and similar) reveals the gap between what you think you do and reality. It's usually a shock — and the start of a change.

Todoist: priority and due date right in the task text

Q

Type “p1” and the task turns red, “tomorrow 9am” and it gets a due date. Quick Add understands it all in one line.

The Todoist Inbox: everything goes in, sort it out later

Ideas and tasks drop into your Inbox without a second thought about where they belong. Once a day, you empty it — into projects, or into the trash.

A distraction blocker: stronger than your willpower

Apps like Cold Turkey or Freedom block chosen websites for a set period. Decide once, and it holds for the whole morning.