Most people try an AI assistant once, ask it something general, get a general answer and decide it isn't for them. The trick is to give it small, real jobs from your own day. Here is a week of them. Each takes ten to twenty minutes.
Before you start#
Pick one assistant and stay with it for the week — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot all have free versions, and any of them is fine for this. Then two rules for the whole week:
- Nothing private. No passwords, no customer data, no medical records, nothing your employer would not want outside the company.
- Check what matters. A name, a number, a date, a law: check it against a source you trust before you use it.
Day 1: Explain something you've been nodding along to#
Explain [the thing] to me as if I'm smart but new to it. Use one everyday example. Then ask me three questions to check I understood.
Answer the questions. This is the habit that separates using AI from reading AI.
Day 2: Rewrite something you already wrote#
Take a real email or message you're about to send.
Make this clearer and shorter. Keep my tone. Then list what you changed and why.
Read the list. You'll learn more about writing from the reasons than from the rewrite.
Day 3: Shrink a long document#
Summarise this in five bullet points. Then list everything that looks like a deadline, a cost or a promise.
Now open the original and find each bullet. If you can't find one, the assistant made it up — which is the most useful thing you'll learn all week.
Day 4: Plan something real#
A trip, a week of meals, a study plan. Give it your limits — the budget, the time, what you won't do — and add:
Before you answer, ask me the questions you need to make this plan good.
Good answers start with good questions. Let it ask them.
Day 5: Work with numbers#
Ask for a spreadsheet formula for something you actually track. Then ask it to explain the formula line by line, and test it on three rows you can check by hand.
Day 6: Rehearse a hard conversation#
A pay rise, a difficult client, an interview.
Play the other person. Push back the way they really would. After five exchanges, tell me what I could have said better.
Day 7: Keep what worked#
Write down the three prompts you'll use again, and one thing the assistant got wrong. That note is the start of your own playbook.
What's next#
If you did five of the seven days, you're ready for the next rung: using AI on your real work, every week.