ChatGPT · Practical walkthrough

Plan a leadership AI practice week you can finish

Five ambitious AI experiments won't fit around five ordinary working days. Start with a smaller plan, and leave time to open the result.

Task by Task4 min read

What you'll make

a five-session practice plan with one small output, one check and a time limit per session.

What you'll need

ChatGPT, your available time and three to five tasks whose results you can check. Use fictional or public material initially; allow 15 minutes to plan, then reserve the sessions separately.

Example result.

Tuesday: update; keep the condition.
Wednesday: questions; cite the page.
Thursday: repair; recheck the change.
Friday: run note; record the failure.
Monday: retry; compare the new source.

1. Draft a plan from your time limits

Open ChatGPT on the web, select Chat › New chat. Write down the minutes available each day, the tasks you want to try and what source you can compare with the answer. A task requiring an unavailable file or new connection goes on a later list.

Build a five-session AI practice plan from [task shortlist] and [available time]. Each session needs one small output, its input, a source check and a stopping rule. Include preparation and checking within the time limit. Reuse a task for a second session if five different jobs won't fit. Don't require a new licence, connection or private data. Leave unsuited tasks out and explain why.

[task shortlist] is your list of jobs and sources. [available time] gives the minutes you can spare in each session.

Why this works: the planning constraint is your week, rather than the number of features in the product.

What you should see: five sessions with an input, output and check for each, all within your time limits.

2. Check each session has an input

Read each session beside your task shortlist. Confirm that the source is ready, that you can check its result and that no new connection is required. Keep the larger jobs on the later list.

Why this works: repeating a task with a better check can teach more than rushing into a different feature every day.

What you should see: five sessions you could put into your diary, with the oversized tasks excluded.

3. Give the plan a dry run

Read the first session. Check whether its input is ready and whether you can complete the source comparison in the time. Then ask:

Review this plan against its time limits. Identify any session whose preparation or checking is missing from the estimate. Reduce its output or split it across sessions. Preserve the source check; don't make the plan fit by removing review time.

Why this works: a smaller output is a useful adjustment. An unchecked output is an unfinished job.

What you should see: a revision that fits the session, with a visible check still attached.

Check the result

Is each session’s input already available?
Does its time limit include checking?
Can you say what would make you stop?

The usual failure: the plan squeezes a whole proposal review into 15 minutes by treating preparation and review as free.

The proposal session has 15 minutes total, including preparation and checking. Limit it to one page and three questions. Keep a check that every question refers to that page. Move the rest to a later session rather than claiming the full review fits.

Worked example

Fictional example.

Archive team lead: 15 minutes Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; 10 Friday.
One event note and a four-page display proposal are ready.
One extra 15-minute session is available the following Monday.
No access to the visitor records during practice.

The weak plan gives Tuesday a complete proposal review plus an event update. The correction uses Tuesday for the update, Wednesday for one proposal page, Thursday to repair one weak answer, Friday to record the failed check and Monday to retry the repaired request.

The plan has five sessions across the available dates. It doesn’t silently create a fifth session this week, or fetch visitor records to make the exercise more impressive.

Go deeper

Record one observation, not a fluency score

After a session, record the task, the check that mattered and what you changed. At the end of the week, choose the next practice from those notes. This gives you a useful learning decision without turning a small exercise into an employee assessment.