I Let ChatGPT Manage My Workweek

by Katie Parrott in Working Overtime Midjourney/Every illustration. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up to get it in your inbox. I sat down to write my second-quarter goals at 4:30 p.m. on a Tuesday in early April. It was the day after I was supposed to turn them in when I decided to be an adult and survey the damage from the first quarter. And I do mean damage. I’d written only half of the columns I’d committed to. Another project I had promised hadn’t even gotten off the ground. I could give the usual excuses—the quarter was busy, the project hit walls outside my control—but the real culprit was obvious: I may be a great writer, but I am garbage at project management. For 15 years, I handled this weakness by tiptoeing around it. I didn’t take on managerial roles that would have required more organizational skills. I didn’t take on so much freelance work that I couldn’t keep the deadlines in my head. I passed on ambitious projects—too many moving parts. This duct-taped approach worked until I decided to join Every full-time in April. If I were going to take on more responsibility as a full member of the team, I needed to get serious about project management. Which, in 2026, meant I needed to bring in AI. So I built myself a project manager: a ChatGPT agent that holds my OKRs—objectives and key results, the goals that define a successful quarter—watches my calendar, reads my Notion to-do list, and helps me decide what to do next. Otherwise, I’d spend my day opening Slack, refreshing X, panicking lightly, repeat. My ChatGPT project management agent helpfully points me toward where to put my focus for a day. (All images courtesy of Katie Parrott.) Most AI-at-work advice starts with the part of your job you’re already good at: Write faster, code faster, analyze faster, ship more. I’m interested in the other side of the equation: using AI to support the part of work that makes it hard to believe you’re good at your job. I’ve set up project management with both my Plus One agent, Margot, and as a ChatGPT agent. I’m featuring the ChatGPT agent here, but you can create your own project manager with any system that gives you a combination of memory, context, and intelligence—more on that below. Become a paid subscriber to Every to unlock this piece and learn about: The recent updates that make ChatGPT a good project manager Where agentic project management still falls down A sample prompt to set up your project manager agent Subscribe Click here to read the full post Want the full text of all articles in RSS? Become a subscriber, or learn more.