- Fundamentally AI
- Posts
- Build Your Personal AI Workflow (Without Overcomplicating It)
Build Your Personal AI Workflow (Without Overcomplicating It)
Discover how to streamline your day with custom AI workflows. This guide helps you identify repetitive tasks, write effective prompts, and build smart systems that save time and mental energy.
Start small, stack smart, and let AI handle the mental clutter.
Ever feel like your to-do list grows faster than you can think? Or that your brain is juggling way too many “small things” at once?
You don’t need an all-in-one dashboard or some perfect Notion setup to start using AI workflows. You just need a simple way to get stuff out of your head and into motion.
This edition is your guide to building AI workflows that are practical, low-lift, and actually save time.
Let’s make it easy.
🚀 First, let’s clear something up:
When most people hear “AI workflow,” they imagine something complicated:
Tools talking to tools talking to tools...
Tags, triggers, APIs, and zaps...
Or a full Notion second-brain they don’t have time to build.
Here’s the truth:
You don’t need any of that to start. In fact, the best AI workflows are often the simplest ones.
You’re already doing the work.
All we’re doing here is layering in AI to do the boring parts for you.
🪜 The 5-Step AI Workflow Formula
Here’s the framework I use for every AI workflow I build — for myself or my clients:
Trigger → Input → AI → Output → Use
Step | What It Is | Example – Email Triage |
---|---|---|
Trigger | What starts the process | You get a new email |
Input | What gets passed to AI | Subject + sender + email body |
AI | What prompt/tool is used | “Summarize this email + suggest reply” |
Output | What the AI gives you | 1-sentence summary + draft reply |
Use | What you do with that output | Copy → tweak → send |
You can apply this same structure to almost any task — from content creation to weekly planning to client communication.
Let’s walk through a few real-world examples.
💡 3 Simple AI Workflows You Can Use Right Now
🧩 1. Morning Content Kickstart
You’ve got a half-baked idea but no time to polish it.
Trigger: You sit down to write
Input: 2 bullet points of the idea
AI Tool: ChatGPT
Prompt: “Turn this into a social media post in my tone, 150 words max.”
Use: Edit → post → done
Bonus: Feed it past posts for better tone-matching
💬 2. Quick Client Follow-Up
You need to re-engage a client but can’t find the words.
Trigger: You remember to follow up
Input: Client name + last message
AI Tool: ChatGPT (or Gmail + Zapier if you’re fancy)
Prompt: “Write a friendly, casual follow-up for this client based on this last note: [paste]”
Use: Tweak → send → move on
You can save this prompt as a template and reuse weekly
🧠 3. Weekly Planning Recap
You're overwhelmed by scattered notes at the end of the week.
Trigger: It’s Friday afternoon
Input: A Notion doc, Google Doc, or rough notes
AI Tool: Claude or Notion AI
Prompt: “Summarize these notes into 3 priorities + 5 tasks for next week”
Use: Review → copy to your planner → breathe easier
This one’s a sanity-saver. Highly recommend.
✍️ How to Build Your First AI Workflow
You don’t need a Zapier account.
You don’t need to connect 7 tools.
You just need to identify one small task you repeat often.
Here’s how:
Choose a friction point (email replies? content drafts?)
Use the Trigger → Input → AI → Output → Use model
Test it manually in ChatGPT first
If it works? Save the prompt. If it works well? Systematize it.
That’s it.
🛠 Bonus Download: AI Workflow Builder
I made a quick PDF you can use to sketch out your own workflows using this model.
→ Click to download now!
|
Use it to design one AI-powered process today — something that saves you 10+ minutes a week.
💭 Final Takeaway
You don’t need to “optimize everything.”
You just need to optimize one thing that’s bugging you.
Start small.
Stack smart.
Let AI handle the clutter.
📬 Forward this to someone who could use help with this
👥 Or share it on LinkedIn with a quick line about which tool you’ll try
🔗 Want more AI productivity hacks? 👉 fundamentallyai.beehiiv.com/subscribe to get weekly insights on AI-powered efficiency, smart automation, and real-world use cases that actually work.
📣 PS — I'm finally on Instagram!
Follow @FundamentallyAI for quick tips, productivity hacks, smart prompts, and behind-the-scenes peeks at how I actually use AI to work smarter (and save my sanity).
Come say hi — it’s brand new, and I’d love to connect with you there!