The 5 AI Prompts That Will Transform Your Daily Productivity

0:00 Last month, I spent three hours organizing my tasks across four different apps. I colorcoded everything. I prioritized. I categorized. And I felt really productive. And then I realized I had gotten absolutely nothing done that actually mattered. Here's the uncomfortable truth. I wasn't being

0:18 productive. I was procrastinating with productivity tools. Does that sound familiar to you? So, here's what I discovered. I wasn't failing at productivity. I was failing at selection. And when I showed AI to show me what was actually worth doing and not just what was urgent, everything

0:35 changed. So today, I'm sharing five AI prompts that most productivity advice won't give you. They'll help you do less, not more. And that's exactly why they work. If you're [snorts] new to the channel, my name is Kian and I am the AI productivity coach and I teach thousands of people how to use AI to make

0:52 themselves more productive in their day. But before we dive in, these aren't just random productivity hacks. Each prompt is based on a framework by experts who have already cracked the code. Tim [snorts] Ferrris, James Clear, Cal Newport, Dwight Eisenhower, and Oliver Burkeman. So, I've taken the core

1:08 principles from their models and turn them into AI prompts that you can adapt for your own situation and life. And for full transparency, I've tried doing this manually using multiple planners, apps, and systems. And frankly, nothing really stuck. But when I let AI analyze my actual work patterns and not my

1:26 idealized version of them, that's when I started to see the difference. 80% of the tasks that I was doing was actually only going towards 20% of the results I needed. So that's where we're starting because it's where most people get stuck. They're so busy that they don't even think, are they doing the right

1:42 thing? After applying these five prompts consistently, I'm really starting to see a difference in the level of output I'm producing. And I've also stopped feeling guilty about what I'm not doing. So let's dive in. And prompt number one is based on the 8020 concept. And this is basically that 80% of your results

2:00 should come from 20% of your effort. It's basically the PTO principle. And it's been popularized by Tim Ferrris in his book, The 4Hour Work Week. As I said, when I first applied this, 80% of my tasks didn't actually produce the results that I wanted. I was spending two hours every week updating a content

2:16 calendar that I barely looked at. I was creating elaborate social media schedules for posts that got minimal engagement. And I was perfecting video thumbnails for content formats that nobody was watching. Meanwhile, the videos that people actually wanted, I'd rush those out in whatever time I had

2:30 left to make them. I was spending hours perfecting things that nobody cared about. AI showed me which 20% I should focus on, and more importantly, which 80% I should get rid of immediately. And so, here's the prompt that you can use. Give me the 80/20 breakdown of this topic or project. And you can paste your

2:49 task, project, or goal here. Show me the 20% of actions that create 80% of the impact. The 20% of customers, products, efforts driving 80% of the revenue or results, what I should start doing, the vital few. What I should stop doing, the trivial many. And if I double down on the top 20%, what would change? So,

3:09 let's see what happens when I run this on my actual YouTube channel. Give me the 80/20 breakdown of this project. I run a YouTube channel teaching AI productivity. I create feature tutorials, tool comparisons, numbered list videos, workflow deep dives, and quick tips. I also write newsletters

3:26 post on LinkedIn and offer coaching. So, show me the 20% of actions that create 80% of the impact, the 20% of content types driving 80% of views engagement, what I should start doing, what I should stop doing, and if I double down on the top 20%, what would change? So, for the sake of this video, I'm keeping the

3:42 example quite short, but obviously the more context you give, the better response you'll have. So, here it's giving me the 20% of actions that create 80% of the impact. Picking the right topics. That was something I was definitely guilty of at the start where I would just choose whatever I felt like

3:56 recording. Title, hook, and thumbnail. Extremely important. That was one again I didn't do at the start. I've probably gotten a bit better at that now. Then further on in the prompt, it's telling me which content types are likely going to be the 20% winners. So tool comparisons shows that it's like high

4:11 intent people are choosing the tool numbered list videos clear promise bingeable easy to title. It shows here workflow deep dives are probably lower views and actually I tried this before and so I've kind of like toned those down a bit. Finally it's telling me what I should start doing. So monthly content

4:27 spine repeatable CTA stack frontload audience context in every script. It also tells me to stop making videos that are cool AI things with a clear use case. Plenty of tips here on the 8020 approach. So, some of this might actually be hard to hear. For example, I did enjoy those workflow deep dives, but

4:44 they're not really getting me as many views as I'd want. So, it's better to stop doing them rather than just doing it because I enjoy them. AI doesn't really care about your feelings, to be honest. >> Don't care. Don't care. Still don't care. I don't care. >> It might pretend it does. It'll just

4:59 look at the data. So, this is a really good way to just get an objective opinion on what you're doing. I found with this more focused approach, the content is resonating better with my audience. But I'd love to hear from you if it is resonating. And if you're enjoying this video, please make sure to

5:12 subscribe to the channel. I create videos showing people how to improve their productivity using AI and AI tools. So, make sure to follow me on this journey. So, that's the first step. You want to find out the top areas that you should prioritize that will drive the biggest impact. Where people fall

5:28 next is that they don't know how to build a system to actually continuously do the top priority work. That's where habits come in. And with this AI prompt, you can build a habit system that is really hard to break once you get into it. Number two, which is the habit stack builder. And the concept comes from

5:44 James Clear's book, Atomic Habits. Habits are not about willpower. They're about system design. He has four laws of behavioral change. You want to make it obvious, which is the Q. You want to make it attractive, which is the craving. You want to make it easy, which is the response. And you want to make it

6:02 satisfying, which is the reward. And here's the main insight. If your environment is designed right, your willpower becomes irrelevant. I personally used to try and build habits through sheer force of will. I'm going to write every single morning. Sure enough, by day three, I'd skip it. And

6:17 I'd usually end up telling myself, I just don't have the discipline to do this. But that was wrong. The problem wasn't my commitment. It was my system. Willpower is like a muscle that eventually gets exhausted the more you use it. You can't rely on it every single day. But a system, a system runs

6:34 whether you're motivated or not. When I use AI to design the habit that used all four laws, it finally stuck and no willpower required. So here's the prompt. I want to build the habit of this specific behavior. Using James Clear's four laws of behavior change, please design a complete habit system

6:53 for me. Law one, [snorts] make it obvious. Where's the Q trigger? Where's the visual reminder? What time does this happen? Law two, make it attractive. How do I make this rewarding? What's the identity shift? Can I bundle this with something I enjoy? Law [snorts] three, make it easy. What's the smallest

7:09 version? The two-minute rule. How do I remove friction? And what environment design helps? And law four, make it satisfying. What's the immediate reward? How do I track this visually? What's my accountability system? And give me a day-by-day implementation for the first week. So, let's use my writing example.

7:25 I want to build the habit of writing for 30 minutes every morning before work starts at 9:00 a.m. using James Clear's four laws of behavior change, blah blah blah. And we'll just use the rest of that prompt. So, now we can see the system is designed. So, the first one, make it obvious, is after I finish the

7:38 first coffee, put your mug down and put it down, right? I love that. You can have a visual reminder on your laptop lid, which is like right for 30. And then you have a dedicated time slot there. So, perfect. It's very actionable and it has a specific time. Next, you want to make it attractive. So you pair

7:52 it with a premium coffee or tea that you only drink during these sessions. I love coffee, so that is definitely rewarding for me. And you also want to connect it to your identity, connect it to your bigger story, bundle it with something enjoyable. So maybe you want to listen to your favorite focus playlist. Third,

8:08 make it easy. So you can write for 2 minutes or one paragraph. This is an example if it's a rough day. You can also have little mini versions. You also want to remove friction. So maybe you have a morning writing document that's pinned and ready to go every morning. Finally, make it satisfying. So after

8:23 each session, tick off a big check box in your tracker and say nice streak alive. Or you enjoy a short walk to reflect on your writing. So this is a great system and I have done something very similar in the past to what the AI actually provided me and it really did help. I was able to write a full play

8:38 and it was based on the principles from James Clear. But the prompt is really good for actually structuring how to do that. There's a lot of things out there that say that a habit takes 21 days to form, 30 days to form. A lot of research actually leans more towards about two months for a habit to form, but you

8:53 start to see real momentum by week three. So, if you are trying to get into this, make sure you have the right plan and you just stick with it for 3 weeks and then you should be able to make it to that 2-month mark. And then you'll really start to see gains in your productivity and all the things you're

9:09 trying to achieve. And it works for loads of things. This can be exercise, reading, writing. Maybe you want to do something sportswise or music-wise. It's great for any of these habits you want to form. So, moving on. You've got your habits formed. You know exactly what you're supposed to be focused on. The

9:24 thing that really hurts people at this phase is interruptions. If you want to get something done, you can't be interrupted all the time, and you need dedicated time where you can focus on specific tasks. This is called deep work. And AI can help you structure that in about 90 seconds. So for prompt

9:40 number three, we're looking at the concept of the deep work sprint. And this is based on Cal Newport's research. The ability to focus without distraction is becoming increasingly rare and therefore extremely valuable. Here's why. It takes 23 minutes to regain focus after an interruption. And the average

9:58 knowledge worker is interrupted 275 times per day. That's every 2 minutes. And most people interrupt themselves every 11 minutes. So you see the problem. Most people are in a state of constant shallow work mode. Constant emails, notifications, pings, text, always being interrupted. Deep work is

10:18 different. It requires you to take a long slot of time and just focus on a specific task. Here's what shocked me as well. 3 hours of deep work is about the equivalent of 8 hours of shallow work. I've learned [snorts] this the hard way many times. You start off a task at the start of the day and by 5:00 p.m. it's

10:36 still not done. And then I've tried doing the same task on another day using deep work and gotten it done by 10:30 a.m. Just in time for a second coffee. And that's the difference between shallow and deep work. So here's a prompt to help you with deep work. I need to design a deep work session using

10:52 Cal Newport's framework. Here's my goal, and you can insert your goal here. Design [snorts] my deepwork sprint with preparation. What do I need ready before I start? What distractions do I eliminate? What's my shutdown ritual at the end? the sprint, how long should the session be? What's my focus mantra or

11:10 rule? What's the single deliverable at the end? And my recovery, what do I do after to recharge? When's my next sprint? How do I track whether this was deep work or shallow? So, for this demo, I'm going to design a deep work sprint for a software developer fixing a complex bug. So, I need to design a deep

11:28 work session using Cal Newport's framework. Here's my goal. Debug a critical authentication issue that's been failing intermittently in production. Need to trace through logs, reproduce the error, identify root calls, and implement fix. So, design my deepwork sprint based on the rest of the

11:42 prompt. So, here we go. It splits it into the different categories. So, it starts with preparation. It tells you what you need to get ready beforehand, what distractions to eliminate, silence Slack, Teams notifications, that's great. Block email notifications, clear desk, set a visible timer. Tells about

11:57 the sprint. Recommends 90 minutes to do this. Focus mantra trace test confirm. No jumping ahead. Love it. And focus on a single deliverable. A verified hypothesis for the root cause plus one working fix or a narrowed repro path. And finally gives recovery. Step outside for fresh air 5 to 10 minutes. Drink

12:14 water. Do a full body stretch. No screen for at least 10 minutes to let your focus reset. And then if you need to go after the break, you can run another 60-minute sprint if needed. Finally, it gives questions for you to reflect on whether it was deep or shallow work. So, this can be really helpful if you have

12:28 work where you just really really need to focus for it. And potentially you can schedule this time into your day. Maybe you prefer to do it in the morning, maybe it's in the afternoon, but you can schedule any meetings or other distractions you might have around this deep work mode. I personally have a

12:43 block on my calendar every day where I don't allow any meetings and it just gives me that time to get this work done. The key to this is that AI customizes it to your actual work and you're not just getting generic advice. So again, the more context you give in setting up the problem, the better your

12:58 response will be and the better the deep work will be ultimately. So you've got your deep work blocks. Great. But here's what kills even the best plans. You let urgent tasks hijack your important work. We all know what happens. Someone sends you a quick question or a meeting gets

13:13 added to your calendar or someone drops over to your desk and physically interrupts you. Suddenly your deep work time is gone. So this brings us on to our next concept and this is prompt number four the Eisenhower decision matrix. The concept here was built by Dwight Eisenhower and to quote the man

13:30 he said what is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important. The matrix is quite simple. So quadrant one is urgent and important. This is like crises deadlines and you have to do them immediately. Quadrant two is not urgent but important. This is strategy, planning, growth. And for this

13:49 you should schedule time. Quadrant three is urgent but not important. These are things like interruptions, some emails and ultimately you should delegate or minimize these. Finally, quadrant four is not urgent and not important. And these are time wasters which you want to eliminate. Here's the trap. Quadrant 1

14:05 feels quite productive. You're firefighting. You're busy. You're responding. But quadrant 2 is where the actual growth happens. Strategy, learning, building systems. So AI can show you exactly which quadrant you're living in. Here's the prompt. Help me categorize my tasks using the Eisenhower

14:22 matrix. Here's my full task list, and you can paste your to-do list here. [snorts] Sort them into quadrant 1, urgent and important. Do these immediately. Quadrant 2, not urgent plus important. Schedule time blocks for these. Quadrant 3, urgent and not important. Delegate, automate, or minimize these. And

14:39 quadrant four, not urgent, not important. Eliminate these entirely. Then tell me what percentage of my time is in quadrant 1 versus quadrant 2. What should I schedule first? What's one thing in quadrant 4 I need to stop doing today? So I'm going to use this to analyze my actual work week. I'm going

14:54 to use it with my task list from last week. So client proposal due, team standup, emails, fix website, a few different tasks here. So let's see what it comes up with. So here we go. It's segmented into the quadrants. So urgent and important do immediately. Quadrant 2. This is where the magic happens. Plan

15:11 next quarter content strategy. We search new AI tools. Coffee meeting with potential partner. Here's quadrant 3. Very kindly. It has not put anything in quadrant 4, which I don't know if that's fully true, but it does say reading industry newsletters is the closest to optional. Um, so I'll eliminate that.

15:28 So, it tells me that actually have a quite a decent amount in quadrant 1 and two. This is based on all the prioritizing I've been doing already. And then it tells me what I should schedule first. So, the client proposal is the most urgent and important. And then also the content strategy planning

15:43 sessions. That's great. That's coming from quadrant 2. And then one thing to stop doing is stop reading industry newsletters on autopilot. Brilliant. So this is great. I can probably move more tasks into quadrant 2 and focus on that a bit more because basically if you're not scheduling quadrant 2 work, someone

15:59 else is going to take that. So even after all those productivity tips and gains, here's the hard truth that nobody really wants to hear. Even even even with all that optimization, you still can't do everything. And that's where this last framework comes in. It's the most important one, and it's the one

16:16 that most people often skip. This brings us to prompt number five, the 4,000 week acceptance. And the concept comes from Oliver Burkeman's 4,000 weeks book. It starts with an uncomfortable fact. The average human will live for 4,000 weeks. That's it. That's all you get. So, if you're 30, you've already used about

16:34 1,500 of them. If you're 40, you're past the halfway point. Think about that. 4,000 weeks sounds like a lot until you start subtracting them every week. And here's what nobody wants to hear. You'll never be on top of everything. You'll never finish your to-do list. You'll never read every book. You'll never

16:51 travel to every place. And unfortunately, you'll probably never do everything you want to do. Burkeman's insight is stop trying to optimize everything. That's the trap that a lot of people fall into. The real breakthrough is when you accept your limitations and then you can make deliberate choices about what you should

17:06 be doing. This one hit me hard. I do have a long to-do list and I feel like I want to try and do everything I can in this life. Build a business, stay in good shape, watch loads of films, travel to 20 countries a year, have a great relationship with my friends and family, learn all these new skills, learn every

17:22 AI tool. But this concept allowed me to let go of some of that. and this AI prompt helped me structure some of my thinking around it. So, here's the prompt. I have 4,000 weeks to live. Let's face reality. Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. Acceptance questions. What's mathematically

17:37 impossible for me to do? If I live a meaningful life, where what must I accept I'll never do? Which goals am I chasing because I want them versus because I think I should? Brutal prioritization. If I could only do one of these, which one matters most? What would I regret not doing in 4,000 weeks?

17:53 Then a weekly reset. This week I'm choosing to succeed at and choose one or two items. This week I'm choosing to fail at and you have to choose a specific item. So for this I'm going to use some my actual goals and this will probably be quite uncomfortable. So here's what I'm trying to accomplish.

18:06 Build a successful YouTube channel with 100K plus subscribers. Grow my AI coaching business. Write a book about AI productivity. Stay in excellent physical shape. Be present and available for my family. Master every major AI tools at launches. Travel to 15 plus countries. Watch 52 films per year. Build financial

18:23 security, maintain deep friendships, and then I put in the rest of the prompt. So, gives me some of these questions. What's mathematically impossible for me to do? Mastering every major AI tool the moment it launches. The volume and pace make total mastery impossible. That's fair. Trying to create all these things

18:38 without tradeoffs. Human bandwidth doesn't stretch that far. Already feeling that a bit. Running at peak. If you want to live a meaningful life, oh, I accept and never do. Become fully caught up on everything happening in AI. That's probably fair for everyone. Although I hope this channel helped it a

18:52 bit for you. Experience every film trip and book. Okay, so which goals are mine versus ones I should feel I want. So interesting. A lot of this is business related and family and travel. Likely should goals is mastering every AI tool which they find and writing a book. It might be genuine but it's also socially

19:09 rewarded and might not be urgent. Interesting. Could do one of these which matters most? Being present with my family and friends. I agree. What would you regret not doing? Kind of love this. It does really categorize some of the reality of the decisions you have to make in life. Always important to get a

19:23 bit of perspective if you ask me. So I think based on this, yes, I definitely want to continue to build this channel and continue growing, but I just want to be there for my family, be in good shape. So maybe some of the extra stuff I'm working on might have to fall off a bit. And that's fine. As long as you

19:39 know that you're choosing to fail at this, then it's fine for you to accept. But it's good to know where you should be spending your time so then you can follow all the other prioritization techniques and have a very fulfilling life. This isn't depressing. It's actually quite freeing. So I really

19:52 recommend you try this last one if you're going to try any of them. So in conclusion, here is the complete system and here are how the five prompts work together. Prompt number one was 8020 and you identify what actually matters. Prompt two is habits. You build sustainable systems around what matters.

20:08 Prompt three is deep work. Structure your days to execute those systems. Prompt four is Eisenhower, protect the time for what matters. And prompt five is Burkeman, let go of everything else. Clarity, behavior, execution, protection, peace. It's a complete operating system for your work and life.

20:24 And here's the paradox. Once you use these prompt to eliminate what doesn't matter, you'll actually start getting more done. And hopefully, this will lead to a more fulfilling and enjoyable life for you. So, here's what I suggest. Don't try do all of these five in one go. Just start with one. Choose your

20:39 favorite and try it out. Maybe you resonate more with one than the other. I recommend going for that and just trying it out maybe for a week and see if it actually helps you become more productive. And remember, AI isn't replacing your thinking. It's just helping you amplify it. And it's also

20:53 giving you another opinion to help structure your thinking. Productivity isn't about doing more. It's about getting more done doing less. So, I hope these frameworks and prompting can help you get more done by doing less. Speaking of getting more done by doing less, please make sure to subscribe to

21:08 my channel if you want to get more tips on how to become productive using AI. I also have a weekly newsletter which you can subscribe to using the link in the description below. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next