Before taking an AI course, look at your daily work first

When you start using tools like Copilot, Gemini, or ChatGPT seriously, one question often comes up:

“What course should I take to go further with AI?”

It’s a good question.

But it might not be the first one to ask.

Start with what eats your time

Before hunting for a certification, I find it more useful to look at your daily work.

• What are the repetitive tasks?
• What do you keep putting off?
• What takes lots of small steps, copy-paste, checks, or follow-ups?

In a small business or as a consultant, that might mean:

• sorting through email;
• spotting messages that need action;
• drafting replies;
• summarizing meetings;
• pulling out next steps;
• preparing proposals;
• creating or updating Excel files;
• generating invoices;
• sending payment reminders;
• tracking payments received;
• finding information quickly in documents;
• preparing client follow-ups.

These aren’t always flashy tasks.

But stacked together, they can eat a lot of time.

AI isn’t only for asking better questions

Your first use of AI often looks like this:

• “Summarize this document for me.”
• “Make me an Excel table.”
• “Help me write this email.”

That’s already very useful.

But there’s a second step: weaving AI directly into certain processes.

• For example, instead of opening your inbox several times a day, a system could surface important messages and prepare a summary.
• Instead of manually checking overdue invoices, a process could flag the ones that need follow-up and draft the reminder.
• Instead of rereading your notes after every meeting, AI could produce the summary and action list.

You stay in the loop, but you don’t necessarily do every step yourself anymore.

A simple exercise

For a few days, jot down every time you catch yourself thinking:

“I’m still doing this by hand?”

At the end of the week, look at your list.

Then for each task, ask:

• Can AI help me do this faster?

• Could this task be automated?

• Does it really need my judgment?

• Some tasks will stay manual.

• Others can be sped up.

• And a few might almost disappear from your day.

What about courses?

They can obviously be very helpful.

But training becomes much more relevant when you know what you’re trying to improve.

• If your pain point is Excel, you can go deeper on Copilot in Excel.
• If it’s email management, you can look at automation tools and agents.
• If it’s preparing client documents, you can work on your templates, data, and processes.

The question then becomes less:

• “What AI course should I take?”

and more:

• “What would I like to stop doing manually?”

From there, it’s much easier to choose the right tools… and the right training.

Tech, simply.