We all get the same 168 hours a week. So why does it seem like some people accomplish so much more with theirs?
Consider Stephen King, who writes 2,000 words every single day—weekends and holidays included. Or Marie Curie, who raised two daughters largely on her own after her husband's death while still becoming the only person ever to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.
Neither had extra hours tucked away somewhere. What they had was something better: a system. Nobody sustains that level of productivity without one.
I've always been a systems person—time boxing, batching similar tasks to avoid constant context-switching. But lately, generative AI has taken my efficiency to another level. Here are three AI habits that have genuinely changed how I work each week.
1. Backwards Calendaring
Few things frustrate me more than a packed calendar or a long to-do list where nothing meaningful actually gets done. A day filled with busywork on throwaway items is, to me, a wasted day.
That said, I understand the temptation. Humans crave control, and ticking off an easy item delivers a little hit of dopamine. But no significant accomplishment ever came from a string of meaningless tasks.
That's why I was intrigued by how AI is breathing new life into the "backwards calendar"—a classic technique with an LLM-powered twist.
The concept is simple: start with your end goal (writing a keynote, landing a client), then work backward, breaking it into concrete steps scheduled across the days leading up to your deadline.
It works—but it used to require tedious setup. Now you can simply tell ChatGPT what you want to accomplish and ask it to act as a master scheduler, building a realistic timeline of actionable steps.
I tried this recently with a product decision that had been dragging for two weeks. Working backward, the AI caught something I'd completely missed: I'd blocked time to "think about it" on three separate days, but never scheduled the actual conversation with my product lead that would let me decide. This is where LLMs shine—they force you to clarify your goals and steps, leaving no room for fuzzy thinking or excuses.
2. Find Your Peak Times
Picture it: 3 p.m. You're five meetings deep, the coffee buzz wore off hours ago, and the post-lunch crash is hitting hard. Time for deep work!
Hardly.
Our energy naturally rises and falls throughout the day—and those fluctuations matter more than we think. Research shows that forcing a morning person into late-night brainstorming (or expecting a night owl to perform at dawn) sets them up for failure. It's called "chronotype mismatch," and it's not something you can just push through.
Nor should you expect nonstop focus. As Dr. Gloria Mark, professor of informatics at UC Irvine, told the New York Times: "We can't expect to lift weights nonstop all day, and we can't expect to use sustained focus and attention for extended periods of time, either."
To leverage your peak times, try this: spend a few weeks tracking your energy hourly on a one-to-ten scale. Feed that data into ChatGPT and ask it to build your calendar around the findings—deep work goes in your sharp windows; meetings, email, and routine tasks go into the dips.
3. The Shutdown Ritual
Cal Newport wrote about the "shutdown ritual" back in 2009, and it's stuck with me ever since. At day's end, he reviews his task list, notes what's unfinished, glances at tomorrow, then says a fixed phrase ("schedule shutdown, complete") out loud to close the day.
Lately I've been running my own version with ChatGPT. At the end of each day, I dump everything still open—an unanswered call, an undecided question—and ask it to sort these into two piles: what must happen first thing tomorrow, and what can wait. The result is a single clear starting point each morning, so I'm not opening my laptop trying to remember where I left off.
Before AI, I believed my systems were already maximizing my efficiency. I was wrong. With a few simple prompts, my calendar feels leaner than ever, and I've reclaimed more time than I thought possible. I'm still not writing 2,000 words a day like Stephen King—or winning Nobel Prizes like Marie Curie. But I do know I'm using my time wisely. And that's good enough for me.