By Mo Shehu
Most small business owners hear about AI and feel two things. First, a bit of curiosity. Second, a whole lot of overwhelm. You’re running payroll, chasing invoices, answering emails, managing staff, trying to sell, and someone tells you AI is the future. Where are you supposed to find the time to figure it out?
I’ve been there. The problem with most AI advice is that it jumps straight into big promises and complicated tools. What you really need is a simple, practical way to use AI right now, in your daily work, to save real hours each week. And you don’t need much more than ChatGPT.
Focus on where you’re already feeling the pain
If a task is costing you more than one hour each week, that’s your starting point. Pick one problem you already have.
Maybe it’s writing client proposals. You sit in front of your screen, trying to say the same thing for the tenth time. Instead, you can feed ChatGPT a few details: who the client is, what service you’re offering, and what the fee is. Ask it to draft a first version. You now have something to edit instead of starting from scratch.
Or you spend hours reviewing your accounts every month. Paste your accountant’s report into ChatGPT and ask it to summarise the key points in plain English. It can highlight large changes, flag unusual expenses, and give you a short summary you can review in minutes.
If you’re stuck on design ideas, ChatGPT can help draft briefs you can send to your designer. Describe your business, your target audience, and what you want to create. ChatGPT can suggest color palettes, themes, and sample taglines to get the creative process going.
Or use AI to interpret data. If you have spreadsheets you don’t fully understand, paste summaries into ChatGPT and ask for a breakdown of trends, outliers, or simple explanations of what the data shows. It works best with Excel or CSV files.
Hiring is another pain point. When we need to post a job, ChatGPT drafts the ad. When preparing for interviews, it can generate a list of interview questions based on the role. It can also create onboarding checklists once you hire someone.
The goal is to save time, not chase perfection
This isn’t about replacing your team or building a fully automated business. It’s about cutting the wasted hours that add up each week. You still need to check the work and make the final decisions. But you save time on the parts that drain your energy.
The hardest part is starting. Once you see how much time you can save on one task, it gets easier to find more ways to use AI in your business.
Give yourself some runway to learn
The first few times you try using ChatGPT for your business, the results may feel a bit off. That’s normal. It works best when you give it clear context, enough detail, and some direction on what you want. Over time, you’ll get better at writing prompts that fit your style and needs. You’re training the tool to work the way you think. Each time you adjust the input, you sharpen the output. The better you get at asking, the more useful the answers become.
ChatGPT is one of the most useful tools we’ve come across in a long time. Start with one task, watch how much time you save, and build from there.
*Mo Shehu, PhD is the founder and CEO of Column, a content and research firm helping leaders turn complex topics into clear insights. He lives in the UK.
