Tutorials
AI Productivity Guides
Practical, tested advice for using AI tools in everyday office work.
AI assistants are most useful for routine office work: drafting, summarising, tidying data and finding information. These guides focus on everyday tasks and on checking the results.
Email & writing
Drafting, rewriting and proofreading emails and documents with AI.
- How Many Words Is a Token? Real Counts From Real TextWe ran an email, a product blurb, a CSV, code and Chinese through OpenAI's tokenizer to show how many words a token really is, and what it means for API costs.Tutorial
Meetings & notes
Summaries, action items and notes from meetings and calls.
- How to Summarize Meeting Notes with AI (and Check the Summary)A copy-and-edit prompt for turning meeting notes or transcripts into decisions and action items with AI, a worked example, and a six-step check for errors.Tutorial
Spreadsheets & data
Formulas, clean-up and quick analysis of spreadsheet data.
- Using ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for Excel and Google Sheets FormulasHow to get correct Excel and Google Sheets formulas from ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, with eight verified formulas on sample data and a quick way to test any AI formula.Tutorial
Research
Using AI to find, compare and summarise information, and checking sources.
Closest pages so far: How to Summarize Meeting Notes with AI (and Check the Summary), How Much Time Can AI Save a Small Business? A Worked ROI Example.
Also useful for ai productivity
- How Much Time Can AI Save a Small Business? A Worked ROI ExampleA step-by-step ROI calculation for an 8-person office using AI for emails, meeting notes and quotes, with conservative assumptions and a sensitivity table.Tutorial
- AI Prompt Templates for Office Work (Copy-and-Edit)Eleven copy-and-edit AI prompt templates for office work, from email replies and meeting recaps to quotes, formulas and job posts, with why each part matters.Tutorial
- How to Write a Good AI Prompt: Checklist with Before/After ExamplesAn eight-point checklist for writing AI prompts, based on OpenAI, Anthropic and Google's own guides, with office before/after examples and the real token cost.Tutorial
Key questions
- How long a document can I paste into an AI tool?
- It depends on the context window, which is measured in tokens rather than words.
- How much time does AI save on office tasks?
- Drafting and summarising usually save the most time; see the worked example.
Related topics
- Prompting Tutorials: Step-by-step tutorials on writing clear AI prompts, with reusable templates and before-and-after examples.
- Choosing AI Tools: Compare AI chat assistants and plans, and evaluate tools before your team commits.
- Prompt library: copy-ready prompts for design, video, images and writing
- Browse all prompts & tutorials