Narus | Six Ways Generative AI Can Help Time Management and Improve Productivity

The pressures of the modern work environment mean that any productivity or efficiency improvements you can make for your knowledge workers can give your company a competitive edge.

One of the greatest unlocks of generative AI (GenAI) is new possibilities for automation, efficiency, and creativity. It can significantly improve time management through the abstracting away of repetitive tasks and letting workers focus on what you hired them to do. In fact, when deployed effectively, a study by MIT Sloan found that GenAI can boost worker productivity by up to 40%.

But what is time management, and how can you enhance it with GenAI? This article will talk you through the basics so you can become a time management expert and get some useful ideas on how you might supplement it with GenAI smarts.

What is time management?

Time management, quite simply, is the organising of time to maximise productivity. It’s about empowering a worker to know how they work best, and to prioritise tasks, meetings, breaks, and any other activity in a manner that lets them get more out of their workday.

What is GenAI?

GenAI is a form of artificial intelligence that focuses on creating new content, based on patterns and structures identified from existing data. These are packaged up into algorithms known as large language models (LLMs), and different LLMs excel at different things. Typically though, GenAI has particular productivity use cases, including helping you to write new text, supporting you with coding, creating images, or even parsing and summarising data for you.

How can GenAI help with time management?

When GenAI is applied to time management, it can greatly enhance productivity and improve the efficiency of workers. Consider the amount of time spent each day on emails, scheduling, and other administrative tasks. Generative AI can handle many of these tasks, freeing you up to focus on more strategic and creative work. This empowers employees to work faster, smarter, and more independently. But you can take that further by using AI’s pattern recognition and information processing prowess to enhance decision-making, time management, and task prioritisation.

Sounds good, right? But we’re still talking about hypotheticals. What are some actual real-world applications for GenAI that you can apply to your work right now? Let’s take a look.

Six real-world applications for GenAI in time management

1. Email management

Think of all the meetings that could have been emails, and now think of all the emails that could have just stayed as thoughts. If you’re anything like us, your inbox can soon balloon out of control if not triaged regularly. But what if AI could do that for you? GSuite already helps surface priority emails, and Gemini can now summarise the content and even suggest replies. Similarly, Apple Intelligence is picking up many of the same abilities in the Mail app, as has Microsoft with Copilot in Outlook.

2. Scheduling and attending meetings

Tired of endless email chains and calendar clashes? Generative AI can streamline your meeting workflow from start to finish. Not only can it intelligently schedule meetings, finding optimal times for everyone involved—with tools like Clockwise even systemising your entire schedule—but it can also handle the meeting itself. Imagine AI transcribing, summarising, and creating action points, allowing you to quickly grasp key information without interrupting your day. Zoom AI Companion 2.0 and services like Otter.ai can even attend meetings on your behalf, ensuring you stay informed without needing to be physically present.

3. AI in a knowledge base

We are all about empowering workers to do their work smarter, which is why we’re horrified that 57% of workers spend more than 30 minutes daily searching for information. By integrating AI with your knowledge base, you allow your workers to more quickly and naturally find answers to support decision-making. This is better for employees and better for your business.

4. Research

Finding explicit knowledge in a knowledge base is one thing, but what about researching trends, product information, or generally deep-diving on a topic? GenAI is there to help, with deep research LLMs from the likes of OpenAI and Google, who are able to browse the web on your behalf, collate their findings into a report, and then let you ask questions about its findings and probe it for more detail. Obviously, fact-check what it produces, but kicking off a research project has never been easier!

5. Content creation and summarisation

Overcome the blinking cursor on a blank page with GenAI, which can quickly and typically accurately create an acceptable first draft of copy, articles, or social media posts. Even better, LLMs can now be fed documents or reports and produce a précis that highlights just the key takeaways, saving you precious time and ensuring you're always up to speed. This gives you more time to refine and polish your content.

6. Task management and time tracking

Looming deadlines and a project that feels all-consuming? GenAI can act like a virtual project assistant, helping you to break down those mammoth tasks into manageable chunks, provide completion time estimates, and even schedule that into your calendar for you. Apps like Todoist or Any.do have AI smarts that can ensure you allocate your time effectively and maintain a sense of control over your workload.

Do you have time not to embrace GenAI?

From automating mundane tasks to enhancing strategic decision-making, GenAI is creating meaningful opportunities for knowledge workers to regain control of their time. By leveraging these tools, businesses can gain a competitive advantage and truly get the most out of their employees.

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