I’ve been leaning on AI for a LOT lately (is this a way of life now? Methinks so), and this week’s theme was very much “please make my life easier without making me do a lot of work first.”
Here are five things I tried. Please go ahead and steal all of them. And ICYMI, my post AI Made Me Hotter has been a real crowd-pleaser. :)
1. Turn a long hair video into a shopping shortlist
I had a video packed with product recs (Abbey Yung, been following her for years now and she just updated her routine) and wanted to know what was actually worth it for my fine, dry hair, and what I already had covered and didn’t need to buy (the whole video was pretty overwhelming tbh).
THE PROMPT:
I have fine, dry hair and I’m focused on hydration, shine, and hair growth. Here are the products I already own: [list them]. From this video, pull out the most important products for me to add by category. Then check real customer feedback, including Reddit and TikTok, and tell me what’s worth buying, what I can skip, and why.
The magic was telling it my hair type and what’s already on my shelf. I did NOT need another giant list of things to buy.
2. Make dinner from the random stuff in my fridge
Chicken breasts, one sweet potato, one regular potato, and broccolini. That’s what I had. But what exactly to do with it? AI turned it into an easy sheet-pan dinner plus a quick stovetop side.
THE PROMPT:
I have [ingredients]. Give me a very easy, delicious dinner using what I have. Keep the steps simple, tell me what can cook together and how long everything takes, and include a quick side dish if one of these ingredients needs to be cooked separately.
Especially clutch at 5:30, when you’re staring into the fridge with that sinking feeling. This was super helpful and eliminated any mental gymnastics.
3. Plan a day out where nobody has to move the car
For a Palm Springs day coming up in a few weeks, I wanted to park once, wander between shops, and still make our drinks and dinner reservations without having to re-park. AI built the whole trip itinerary, including a day around the actual timing and how we like to travel.
THE PROMPT:
We’re spending the afternoon in [place]. We have a reservation at [time and location] and dinner at [time and location]. Build a relaxed, walkable plan with cute home and clothing shops, coffee shops, and trendy bars along the way. We’d rather park once and walk than move the car around. Keep the timing realistic and flag anything that may be too far on foot.
The trick: give it your reservations and your real-life preferences up front. “Make us an itinerary” gets you a generic list. “We’d rather park once and walk” gets you a day you’ll actually enjoy (or at least I will…big walker over here!).
4. Manage a messy, packed calendar
Kids off school, an early pickup, an appointment, soccer at 4, swim class at 5, Girl Scouts, workouts, and a few time blocks I really wanted to protect. Instead of trying to cram it all in, I asked AI to help me decide what actually belonged in that week, and when it all should happen.
THE PROMPT:
Here’s my schedule next week: [days and commitments]. These are the blocks I need to protect: [list]. These are my priorities: [list]. Build a realistic schedule, group similar work together, and push anything that isn’t essential to the following week. Don’t fill every open space. Add in 30 minutes of transition time before and after any in-person activities. Then add those blocks to my calendar [let AI connect to your calendar…this is game changing].
The transition time is very important. Otherwise AI treats every blank hour like a personal challenge and doesn’t realize that picking up the kids actually takes 45 minutes wandering the school halls.
5. Turn my dusty old portfolio site into a real landing page
My personal site was a portfolio from a past life: a clunky grid of old work that said nothing about what I’m doing now. I needed one simple page that says who I am and sends people to my two things, my new consulting business (which is still in progress) and this Substack. I did NOT need a six-week web project.
So I asked Claude to build it. No template shopping, no new platform to learn (thank god).
THE PROMPT:
I want to replace my old portfolio site with a simple one-page landing page. Here’s who I am: [2–3 sentences OR copy/paste from LinkedIn OR write entire website if you’d like to]. The page needs to do two things: send people to [business] and to [newsletter]. Here’s the vibe I want: [3 adjectives, plus a site or two you love. Mood boards and color palettes are a bonus if you want to use them]. Here are photos of me to use [upload photos]. Build it as a single file I can upload. Then walk me through putting it on my existing domain, one step at a time, assuming I’ve never done this before.
A few things that made this work:
Give it a job, not a design brief. “Two buttons, two destinations” got me a cleaner page than any amount of describing fonts.
React instead of specifying. I’d say “warmer,” “less corporate,” “less AI,” “shorter,” and it would redo it in seconds. Much faster than trying to describe the perfect page up front.
Make it your tech support. The domain part is where I’d normally give up. I told it where my domain lives and where I was hosting the new page, and asked for click-by-click instructions. When I got stuck, I pasted in a screenshot.
If you have an outdated site, a LinkedIn that’s trying to do all the work, or a domain you bought a million years ago and never touched, this is VERY doable…in total, it took me (a non-coder, non-techie) under 90 minutes.
I want to hear about what you used AI for this week! Drop your tips below. And if you think any of these prompts are helpful to your Substack people, please share.
I applaud this message!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 I just posted this morning about AI shaming. We all need support in different ways, and I love seeing people openly share how they’re using AI instead of feeling like they need to hide it.