Day 16 of 28 · AI Challenge
AI for Project Management
⏱ 6 min
📊 Beginner
Projects fail for predictable reasons: unclear scope, missed deadlines, forgotten action items, and meetings where nobody remembers what was decided.
AI won't fix bad ideas — but it will fix the operational chaos that kills good ones. Today you'll learn to use AI as your project management co-pilot: creating plans, tracking progress, and turning messy conversations into clear next steps.
From idea to project plan in 60 seconds
Most people stall at the planning stage. They know what they want to build, but turning that into tasks, timelines, and milestones feels like a project in itself. AI eliminates that friction.
Instead of staring at a blank Trello board or Notion page, you describe what you're building and let AI break it down. You'll get a structured plan you can refine — not a blank page you have to fill from scratch.
I'm launching a small online course in 6 weeks. I need a project plan. The course has 12 video lessons, a sales page, email sequences, and a community space. I'm a one-person team with about 20 hours per week to dedicate to this.
Here's your 6-week launch plan:
**Week 1-2: Content Creation**
- Outline all 12 lessons (Day 1-2)
- Record lessons 1-6 (Day 3-10) — aim for 2-3 per week
- Edit and upload as you go
**Week 3: Content + Sales Page**
- Record lessons 7-12
- Draft sales page copy (headline, benefits, testimonials, pricing)
- Build sales page (use Carrd or a landing page builder — 2 hours)
**Week 4: Email + Community**
- Write 5-email launch sequence: teaser, value, social proof, offer, last chance
- Set up community space (Circle, Discord, or Skool)
- Create welcome sequence for new students
**Week 5: Testing + Pre-Launch**
- Beta test with 3-5 people — collect feedback
- Fix any issues with video playback, links, email delivery
- Start teasing on social media (3 posts/week)
**Week 6: Launch**
- Send launch emails Mon/Wed/Fri
- Go live on social channels
- Monitor and respond to questions
- Close cart on Sunday
**Key milestones:**
📍 End of Week 2: 6 lessons recorded
📍 End of Week 3: All content done + sales page live
📍 End of Week 5: Beta feedback incorporated
📍 Week 6 Friday: Launch day
Want me to break any week into daily tasks?
Break Week 1 into daily tasks.
**Week 1 — Daily Breakdown (20 hours total)**
Monday (3h):
- Outline lessons 1-4: title, key points, exercises
- Draft lesson 1 script
Tuesday (3h):
- Outline lessons 5-8
- Draft lesson 2 script
Wednesday (4h):
- Outline lessons 9-12
- Record lesson 1 (aim for 15-20 min)
Thursday (4h):
- Record lessons 2 and 3
- Quick edit pass on lesson 1
Friday (3h):
- Edit lessons 2-3
- Upload all three to hosting platform
Saturday (3h):
- Record lesson 4
- Review and refine outlines for next week
✅ Week 1 output: 4 lessons recorded, all 12 outlined
Shall I create this in Notion, Trello, or a spreadsheet format?
↻ Replay conversation
Knowledge Check
What's the biggest advantage of using AI to create a project plan?
A
It eliminates the blank-page problem — you get a structured starting point to refine instead of building from zero
B
It removes the need for project management tools
C
AI can predict exactly how long each task will take
D
AI plans are always better than human-made plans
AI gives you a solid first draft in seconds. You still need to adjust timelines based on your reality, but starting with a structured plan is dramatically faster than creating one from scratch. The plan isn't perfect — it's a starting point that saves you an hour of staring at an empty board.
Meeting summaries that actually work
Here's a frustrating pattern: you have a productive 45-minute meeting, everyone leaves energized, and within 24 hours nobody can agree on what was decided. Sound familiar?
AI meeting tools like Otter.ai, Fireflies, and Notion AI can record, transcribe, and summarize meetings automatically. But you can also do this manually by pasting meeting notes into ChatGPT or Claude.
The key is extracting three things: decisions made, action items with owners, and open questions.
Here are my notes from today's team brainstorm about our new mobile app:
"Jake thinks we should do iOS first. Sarah disagrees, wants cross-platform with React Native. We talked about budget — Jake says $15K for iOS only, Sarah says $12K for React Native but might take longer. Marcus raised that our users are 70% Android based on analytics. We agreed to go React Native. Sarah will research developers this week. Jake will finalize the feature list by Friday. Need to decide on the launch date — probably Q2 but Marcus wants to check with the sales team first. Also need a name for the app."
**Meeting Summary — Mobile App Brainstorm**
**Decisions Made:**
- Going with React Native (cross-platform) — based on 70% Android user base and lower cost ($12K vs $15K)
**Action Items:**
| Who | What | Deadline |
|-----|------|----------|
| Sarah | Research React Native developers | End of this week |
| Jake | Finalize feature list | Friday |
| Marcus | Check with sales team on Q2 launch timing | Not set — needs a deadline |
**Open Questions:**
- Exact launch date (leaning Q2, pending sales input)
- App name (no candidates discussed yet)
- React Native might take longer — Sarah should get timeline estimates from developers
**Recommendation:** Set a deadline for Marcus's sales check-in (suggest: next Tuesday) so the launch date doesn't drift. Want me to draft a follow-up message to the team with these action items?
↻ Replay conversation
Knowledge Check
What three things should you always extract from meeting notes using AI?
A
Budget figures, revenue projections, and timelines
B
Attendee names, meeting length, and room number
C
Decisions made, action items with owners, and open questions
D
Complaints, suggestions, and compliments
Decisions, action items, and open questions are the three outputs that actually drive work forward after a meeting. Everything else is context. If you walk out of a meeting without these three things documented, the meeting was essentially wasted.
Status updates in 30 seconds
Writing weekly status updates is one of those tasks everyone hates. You know what happened — you just don't want to write the email. AI makes this painless.
Keep a running list of what you accomplished during the week — even bullet points in your Notes app work. On Friday, paste it into AI and ask for a professional status update.
Pro tip: Save a prompt template like this: "Turn these bullet points into a professional weekly status update for my manager. Tone: confident but not boastful. Highlight blockers. Keep it under 150 words." Reuse it every Friday. A task that used to take 15 minutes now takes 30 seconds.
Knowledge Check
How can you make weekly status updates faster with AI?
A
Skip status updates entirely and let AI handle reporting
B
Copy your coworker's status update and ask AI to reword it
C
Keep a running list of bullet points during the week, then paste them into AI on Friday with a formatting prompt
D
Have AI make up accomplishments that sound impressive
The system is simple: capture quick bullet points as you work (takes seconds), then let AI format them into a polished update on Friday (takes 30 seconds). You get accurate, well-written updates without the Friday afternoon dread.
Putting it together
Here's the workflow that saves project managers 5-10 hours per week:
Monday: Ask AI to generate the week's priorities based on your project plan and last week's progress.
After every meeting: Paste notes into AI for summary, action items, and follow-up drafts.
Daily: Use AI to draft quick status messages, Slack updates, or standup notes.
Friday: Feed AI your week's bullet points and get a polished status report in 30 seconds.
None of these tasks are hard. They're just tedious. And tedious is exactly where AI shines.
📋
Day 16 Complete
"AI won't manage your project for you — but it'll handle the 80% of project management that's just organizing information."
Tomorrow — Day 17
Customer Communication with AI
Tomorrow you'll learn to handle customer messages at scale without losing the personal touch.