I save about five hours a week with ChatGPT. Not with anything clever, with ten specific prompts I reuse constantly. Most people open a blank chat and freeze. The trick is having a small set of prompts you trust, ready to paste. Here are mine.
The ten prompts
- Draft in your exec's voice. "Here are three emails my exec wrote [paste]. Match that tone and draft a reply to the email below: [paste]."
- Kill the long thread. "Summarize this thread into five bullets: the decision, who owns what, deadlines, open questions, and my next action. [paste]"
- Notes to minutes. "Turn these notes into clean minutes with Attendees, Decisions, Action Items (owner and due date), and Next Steps. [paste]"
- The graceful no. "Write a warm, brief decline that keeps the relationship intact and offers one alternative. [paste]"
- Pre-meeting brief. "Build a one-page brief on [person or company]: role, recent news, likely priorities, and three smart questions my exec could ask."
- Fix the tone. "Rewrite this to sound warmer, firmer, or more concise without losing meaning. Under 120 words. [paste]"
- Transcript to actions. "From this transcript, extract every action item as task, owner, and due date. Flag anything with no owner. [paste]"
- Instant agenda. "The goal is [X]. Draft a 30-minute agenda with time blocks and one outcome per block."
- Brain-dump to plan. "Group this brain-dump, rank by urgency and impact, and give me a top three to start with. [paste]"
- Bullets to update. "Turn these bullets into a polished weekly leadership update: wins, in-progress, blockers, next week. [paste]"
The one rule
AI drafts, you verify. Never send anything you have not read, especially names, numbers, dates, and anything in your executive's voice.
The prompts save the time. Your eyes save the credibility. Save this page, keep the prompts close, and start with the one that fixes your most annoying recurring task.