Smarter Week

How to automate it

How to automate “answer Slack pings and drop-in questions while trying to focus”

Here are 2 ways to spend less time on this, best first. Each comes with steps you can follow today and, for AI fixes, a prompt to copy.

45 min
typically, every day
35%
of the time can be automated
Easy
to set up

Fix 1 of 2

Process fixBest fix

Rotate one person on interrupt duty so everyone else can focus

One person each week takes questions, small requests and support pings. Everyone else gets long stretches of uninterrupted time.

Typically saves about 40% of the time30 min to set up
  1. 1Create a team help channel and a weekly "on duty" rotation (Slack or Teams user group, or PagerDuty or Opsgenie schedule).
  2. 2Point all questions and small requests at the channel, not individuals.
  3. 3The person on duty answers, fixes small things or files tickets.
  4. 4Everyone else mutes the channel and blocks focus time.
  5. 5Turn repeat questions into FAQ entries during the duty week.

Tools: Slack or Teams user groups · PagerDuty or Opsgenie schedules

Fix 2 of 2

AI

Write the answers down once and point people (or a bot) at them

Collect the questions you keep answering into one page; a workspace AI or a ChatGPT Project, Claude Project or Gem can answer from it.

Typically saves about 50% of the time1 h to set up
  1. 1For one week, paste every repeat question into a doc.
  2. 2Write the answer under each (or have AI draft it from your replies).
  3. 3Share the page, pin it in chat, and add it to a Claude Project, ChatGPT Project, Gemini Gem or Copilot agent.
  4. 4Reply to repeat questions with the link.
Prompt to copy
Below are questions coworkers keep asking me and my past answers. Turn them into a clear FAQ page grouped by topic. Keep each answer under 80 words and keep any links I gave.

[PASTE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS]

Tools: Claude Projects · ChatGPT Projects · Gemini Gems · Copilot agents · Notion or Confluence

Who does this task

Roles in our library that list this as one of their common tasks. Each guide covers the rest of that role’s week.

Software engineerQA / Test engineerDevOps / Site reliability engineerIT / Systems administrator

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