I let ChatGPT set my weekday schedule for September, and it wasn’t a disaster. I was more productive and a lot more intentional about my time. Even when I didn’t stick to the schedule, knowing that I had one made me think more carefully about how I was spending my time. I will count those as wins for the month, and I intend to make my own schedules going forward to continue playing those psychological tricks on myself. My verdict is that it was an experiment worth doing.
With that out of the way, let’s look at what went wrong, too. Everyone in my household has officially been diagnosed with ADHD, so I probably should have foreseen the difficulties with sticking to a schedule, between my brain sometimes rebelling and my family being prone to chaos. Another issue was ChatGPT being ChatGPT; I spent more time correcting it and specifying exactly what I needed to get done than I would have just setting up the schedule manually. It did help me think through what tasks I needed to accomplish, so that was one good thing. I think I will just write down my various necessary tasks on a running list and work from that to schedule myself, bypassing the AI help.
The intentionality and attention I had with this experimental scheduling gave me insight into some of my strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. For example, I do better with a menu of tasks to choose from for each work block, to meet myself where I am mentally. I also found a Pomodoro-style timer helped me focus on each task, whether it was a YouTube video or one of the apps on my phone. And I am now more aware of the difference mindfulness and intention can make in how time is spent and how much is accomplished in that time.
Let’s call September a successful experiment. ChatGPT was largely a waste of time, but I gained valuable insights that I plan to carry forward. This is perfect timing, too, with the October language learning experiment starting today.
The Mia Experiment 