Let’s plan it out together

ai your plan

Introduction:

Every great idea starts somewhere. But turning that idea into something achievable can sometimes be the hardest part.

ai your plan brings together a simple Excel planning template and a series of AI prompts to help you turn your ideas into an actionable plan. Whether you’re managing a project at work, organising an event, launching a business or simply tackling something you’ve been putting off, this resource can help you identify what needs to happen, work through the steps and map out a realistic timeline.

You don’t need to be a project manager to use it. Bring your idea, your knowledge and a willingness to explore. AI can help you work through the details, while you remain in control of the decisions.

Get your planning template:

Download the free Excel template to get started. It’s designed to help you organise your activities, milestones and timeframes, giving you a visual overview of your plan.

Save the workbook somewhere you can easily find it. You’ll use it alongside the AI prompts below to gradually build your plan.

Download your free Excel Template

Step 1: Plan your plan

Before asking AI to help build your project plan, start by entering a few basic details in the Plan Your Plan tab of your Excel workbook.

You don’t need to have everything figured out yet. Just enter what you already know:

Project Name: Give your project a name.
Start Date: When do you expect to begin?
Estimated Finish Date (worst case): What’s the latest date you could reasonably expect the project to finish? This gives you a timeframe to work within.
Project Leader: Who is responsible for overseeing the project? This might be you!
Resource Names: List the people who will be doing the work, including yourself if applicable. You can add or update these names later.

Then check your Gantt chart settings.

The workbook will suggest a suitable time increment for your Gantt chart based on your project dates. You can leave the Desired Time Increment field blank to accept this suggestion, or enter your preferred increment.

Don’t worry about getting everything perfect at this stage. You’ll have opportunities to review and refine your plan as you work through the next steps.

Step 2: Identify your work groups

Now that you’ve established your project’s basic details, it’s time to think about how the work might be organised.

Most projects can be divided into smaller, more manageable groups of work. These might be stages that follow one another, such as planning, preparation and delivery, or different areas of activity that happen alongside each other, such as communications, finance and operations. Sometimes, a combination of both works best.

Don’t worry if you’re not sure which approach suits your project. That’s where AI can help!

Use the prompt below to describe what you’re trying to achieve and ask AI to suggest a logical way to organise the work.

Copy and paste this prompt into your preferred AI application. Replace the information in square brackets with your own details.

Plan your work groups prompt:

Role
You are an experienced project manager who helps people turn ideas into practical, achievable project plans. Explain things in plain English and don’t assume I have project management experience.

Context
I am planning the following project:
– Project name: [Enter project name]
– Project description: [Describe what you want to achieve and what the project involves]
– Start date: [Enter date]
– Latest acceptable finish date: [Enter date]
– People or roles involved: [Enter details, if known]

Task
Help me identify the main groups of work needed to deliver this project.

Consider whether it would be more logical to organise the work into:

– Stages that broadly follow one another.
– Different areas of work that can happen at the same time.
– A combination of both.

Recommend an approach based on the nature of my project, and briefly explain why.

If you need more information before making your recommendation, ask me up to three clarifying questions.
Once you have enough information, suggest approximately 4–7 high-level work groups. Give each one a clear, descriptive name and briefly explain what it covers.
Keep the groups distinct and avoid unnecessary overlap. Don’t break them down into individual activities yet. We’ll do that in the next step.
Ensure the recommended number of work groups reflects the overall timeframe and scale implied by my start and finish dates.

Format
Present your recommendations in a simple table with these columns:
1. Work Group
2. What it Covers

Before the table, briefly explain your recommended approach and whether the groups are likely to happen sequentially, in parallel or as a combination.
Ask me to review and confirm the suggested work groups before we continue developing the project plan.

Review your suggested work groups

Look through AI’s recommendations and consider whether they reflect how you see your project coming together.

You can ask AI to combine, rename, remove or add work groups until you’re happy with the structure.

Once you’re satisfied, enter the agreed work group names into the top row of your Excel workbook.

Don’t worry about individual activities or timeframes just yet. We’ll work through those in the next step.

Step 3: Break your work groups into activities

Now it’s time to look more closely at what needs to happen within each work group.

Rather than trying to identify every activity yourself, use AI as a brainstorming partner. Together, you’ll explore what needs to be done, consider anything you might have overlooked and gradually develop a list of activities that makes sense for your project.

Work through one work group at a time, using the prompt below. This is a conversation, not a one-off exercise. You might agree with some of AI’s suggestions, reject others or suddenly remember something you’d forgotten to include. That’s all part of the process!

Take your time with this step. The more thoroughly you explore your activities now, the easier it will be to develop a realistic timeline later.

Don’t worry about dates, durations or dependencies just yet. For now, we’re concentrating on WHAT needs to be done, not WHEN it needs to happen.

Important note: Each work group can only have a maximum of 99 activities each.

Plan your activities prompt:

Role
Continue acting as my experienced project planning partner. Help me think through all the activities needed to complete each work group of my project, using plain English and a collaborative, conversational approach.

Context
We have already established my project’s overall objectives and agreed on its main work groups.

I now want to focus specifically on:
Work Group: [Insert work group name]

We will work through each work group separately before developing the project schedule.

Task
Help me brainstorm a thorough and practical list of activities required to complete this work group.

Approach this as an interactive conversation, rather than generating a complete list and assuming it’s correct.

1. Begin by asking me any important questions that will help you understand what this work group involves.
2. Suggest an initial set of activities, explaining briefly why you think each might be needed. Keep your suggestions manageable so we can discuss them together.
3. Invite me to accept, reject, modify or add to your suggestions. Consider my feedback and update our working list as we go.
4. Continue exploring the work group with me. Ask questions that might help uncover activities I haven’t considered, and suggest additional activities where appropriate.
5. Consider things that are easily overlooked, such as preparation, stakeholder engagement, reviews, approvals, testing, documentation and handover, where relevant to this particular work group.
6. Identify any activities that might fit more naturally within another work group and flag these for my consideration rather than duplicating them.
7. Once we think we have covered everything, challenge our working list. Consider what else might need to happen for this work group to be considered complete.

Important instructions
– Don’t assume your suggestions are automatically accepted. I make the final decisions about what belongs in my plan.
– Aim for practical activities that are specific enough to be planned and tracked, without breaking everything down into unnecessarily small tasks.
– Give activities clear, action-oriented names that describe what needs to be accomplished.
– Do not estimate durations, allocate dates, assign resources or develop dependencies yet. We will address these separately.
– Don’t rush to finalise the activity list. Keep brainstorming with me until I confirm that I’m satisfied.
– Each work group can only have a hard maximum of 99 activities each, but to keep it manageable, let’s try and keep it under 30 each. If we need more than 30 for any work group, please explain why.
– Before we finalise this work group, perform a brief sanity check against previously finalized work groups to ensure no duplicated effort or missed handoffs between groups.

Format
During our discussion, present your suggestions in small, manageable groups and maintain an updated working list as we progress.

When I confirm that we’ve finished brainstorming, present the agreed activities as a clean, single-column list, with one activity per line, suitable for copying directly into Excel.

Do not include numbering, bullet points or additional explanations in the final list.
Ask me to confirm the final list before we move on to another work group.

Add your activities to Excel

Once you’re happy with the activities for your first work group, copy the final list into your Excel workbook, placing each activity in a separate cell beneath the corresponding work group heading.

Note: To get the activities copied nicely down the column, you may have to right-click and use Paste Special > As Text.

Repeat the process for each remaining work group, changing the work group name in the prompt each time.

Before moving on to the next step, look over your completed activity lists and consider whether anything is missing, duplicated or sitting in the wrong group.

My strong recommendation: Before moving on, ask AI to review your complete list of work groups and activities. Share a screenshot of your Excel worksheet, upload the workbook itself, or provide a cloud file link if your AI application has access to it.

Ask AI to identify anything you may have missed, duplicated or placed in the wrong work group. Review its suggestions and make any final adjustments before moving on to scheduling.

This time, try writing your own prompt. Think about what you want AI to review and what useful feedback might look like.

Once you’re satisfied, you’re ready to start turning your activities into a project schedule!

Step 4: Work out your dependencies

Some activities can’t begin until another activity has been completed. We call these dependencies.

For example, if you’re organising an event, you might need to confirm your venue before sending invitations. However, designing your invitations and organising catering could happen at the same time.

Understanding these relationships helps you organise your activities in a logical sequence, without unnecessarily delaying work that could happen in parallel.

Entering your dependencies

In your Gantt worksheet, use the dropdown in the Dependent on column to select the ID of the activity that must finish before another can begin.

For example, if activity 1.03 cannot begin until activity 1.01 is complete, select 1.01 from the dropdown.

A few things to remember:

Dependencies can come from any work group, not just the one you’re currently reviewing.
Not every activity needs a dependency. If an activity can begin independently, leave the cell blank.
To keep things simple, this template allows one dependency per activity. If an activity relies on several others, identify the most relevant dependency and remember to check the additional requirements when reviewing your overall schedule.

Help AI understand your activity numbers

Your Gantt worksheet automatically assigns a unique ID to every activity. The prompt below explains how this numbering works, allowing AI to recreate your activity list using the work groups and activities you’ve already developed together.

If you’ve started a new AI conversation, you’ll need to provide your complete activity list again. You can copy and paste it from your Plan Your Activities worksheet or share a screenshot if your AI application supports images.

Before proceeding, check that AI has correctly matched every activity to its Excel ID. This will make entering your dependencies much easier!

Use the prompt below to work through your dependencies one work group at a time, while considering activities across your entire project.

A little tip: Your Gantt chart might look a bit strange at this stage, with activities appearing on the same date. That’s okay! We haven’t told Excel how long each activity will take yet. We’ll do that next, and that’s when you’ll really start to see your project timeline come together.

Plan your dependencies prompt:

Role
Continue acting as my experienced project planning partner. Help me identify the logical relationships between activities in my project, using plain English and a collaborative approach.

Context
We have already identified the work groups and activities for my project.

I want to review the dependencies for:

Work Group: [Insert work group name]

Refer to my complete project activity list when making your recommendations, not just the activities within this work group.

My Excel planning template allows only ONE dependency per activity. Dependencies are entered using the unique activity IDs shown in my workbook.

Understanding my activity IDs
My Excel workbook automatically assigns a unique Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) ID to each activity.

The IDs follow these rules:
– Work groups are numbered sequentially, starting at 1, in the order they appear in my Plan Your Activities worksheet.
– Each activity receives an ID consisting of its work group number, followed by a decimal point and a two-digit activity number.
– Activities within each work group are numbered sequentially, starting at 01, in exactly the order they appear in the agreed activity list.
– Activity numbering restarts at 01 for each new work group.
– Work group headings are not activities and do not receive activity IDs.

For example:
Work Group | Activity ID
Work Group 1 | 1.01
| 1.02
| 1.03
Work Group 2 | 2.01
| 2.02
| 2.03
Work Group 3 | 3.01
| 3.02
Treat these IDs as identifiers, not mathematical decimal numbers. Always retain the two-digit activity numbering, including leading zeros.

Use the activity lists we developed earlier in this conversation to reconstruct the complete project activity register and assign the corresponding WBS IDs.

Before recommending any dependencies, present the reconstructed activity register for me to check against Excel. Do not proceed until I confirm that your numbering and activity descriptions match my workbook.

Once confirmed, use these IDs throughout our dependency discussions. Remember that a dependency can refer to an activity in ANY work group, but never to a work group heading itself.

Task
Help me identify which activities need to be completed before each activity in this work group can begin.

For each activity:
1. Consider whether it genuinely needs another activity to finish before it can start.
2. If a dependency is required, suggest the most appropriate predecessor using its activity ID. This can be an activity from ANY work group in the project.
3. If an activity can begin independently, recommend leaving its dependency blank.
4. Briefly explain your reasoning so I can review and challenge your suggestions.
5. If an activity has multiple essential prerequisites, flag these for my attention and recommend which single dependency to enter in the workbook. Explain what additional requirements I’ll need to check manually.
6. If an activity genuinely requires multiple prerequisites, select the most restrictive/critical one for the ‘Suggested dependency ID’ column, and explicitly list the secondary Activity ID(s) in a separate ‘Secondary Prerequisite (Manual Track)’ column so I don’t lose sight of it.
7. If an activity is bound to a fixed real-world date or event schedule (e.g., booked appointments, venue access times, external deadlines) rather than a preceding task’s completion, leave its dependency blank and flag it as a ‘Fixed Start Date’ activity.

Important instructions
– Recommend a maximum of ONE dependency per activity.
– Dependencies must refer to an individual activity ID, never a work group heading.
– Only use activity IDs from the complete activity register we have reconstructed and I have confirmed against my Excel workbook. Do not invent additional activities or IDs.
– An activity cannot depend on itself.
– Don’t automatically assume activities must happen in the order they appear in the workbook. Consider opportunities for parallel work.
– Check that your recommendations are logically consistent and do not create circular dependencies.
– Do not estimate durations, assign dates or change my agreed activity list.
– Treat your recommendations as suggestions. I will make the final decisions.
Format
Present your recommendations in a table containing:
Activity ID | Activity | Primary Dependency ID (Excel) | Fixed Start Date | Secondary Prerequisite (Manual) | Reason

Use ‘None’ where no dependency is required.

Discuss your recommendations with me and invite me to make changes before finalising them.

Once I confirm that I’m satisfied, provide a clean summary of the agreed dependencies for this work group.

Ask me which work group I’d like to review next.

Enter your dependencies into Excel

Once you’re happy with AI’s recommendations, return to your Gantt worksheet.

Use the dropdown in the Dependent on column to select the agreed activity ID for each activity. The dropdown contains the activity IDs from your project plan, so there’s no need to type them manually.

Leave the cell blank if an activity can begin independently.

Repeat this process for each work group until you’ve reviewed all your project activities.

Don’t worry if your Gantt chart looks a little strange at this stage! We haven’t entered the activity durations yet, so the timeline won’t reflect your actual project schedule. That’s what we’ll tackle next.

Step 5: Estimate your activity durations

This is where your project plan really starts coming to life!

Now that you’ve identified your activities and their dependencies, it’s time to consider how long each activity will take.

Your Excel workbook has already determined a suitable time increment based on the project dates you entered in Step 1, or used your preferred increment if you selected one.

It’s important to use this same increment when entering your activity durations.

For example:

Your selected increment	Enter your durations in
Hours	Hours
Days	Days
Weeks	Weeks
Months	Months

If your timeline is configured in days, entering a duration of 5 means five days. If it’s configured in weeks, entering 5 means five weeks.

Your Gantt chart is also formatted to display the timeline using your chosen increment, so everything works together.

As you enter your estimates into the Duration column, the workbook will calculate the activity dates and you’ll begin to see your project schedule taking shape.

Remember, these are estimates. You don’t need to predict the future perfectly, but try to be realistic about how much time each activity will need.

A quick note about durations: Your workbook only accepts whole numbers. If your timeline uses weeks and an activity is expected to take three days, round it up to one week. If you find yourself rounding up lots of activities, consider returning to your Plan Your Plan tab and choosing a smaller time increment.

Plan your durations prompt:

Role
Continue acting as my experienced project planning partner. Help me develop realistic duration estimates for the activities in my project.

Context
We have already agreed on my project’s work groups, activities and dependencies.
I now want to estimate the durations for:

Work Group: [Insert work group name]

My Excel Gantt chart uses the following time increment:
[Enter your selected increment: hours, days, weeks or months]

All duration estimates must use this increment.

Task
Help me estimate how long each activity in this work group might reasonably take.

Consider the nature and complexity of each activity, the work involved, any known constraints and the resources available.

Distinguish between active effort and elapsed lead time. For example, a task that takes 2 hours of actual work but requires 3 days of waiting for third-party approval must be estimated as 3 days in the schedule.

Ask me clarifying questions where necessary, particularly if an activity’s duration could vary significantly depending on how it is undertaken.

For each activity:
1. Suggest a realistic duration using my selected time increment.
2. Briefly explain the reasoning behind your estimate.
3. Highlight any assumptions or uncertainties I should consider.
4. Invite me to review and adjust your recommendation based on my own knowledge and experience.

Don’t assume your estimates are correct. I want us to discuss them and agree on realistic durations together.

Important instructions
– Use only my selected time increment.
– Use the existing activity IDs from our confirmed project activity register.
– Do not change the agreed activities or dependencies.
– Do not assign start or finish dates. My Excel workbook will calculate these.
– Where an activity represents a milestone or a specific point in time rather than work taking place over a period, suggest a duration of 0.
– Don’t automatically assume every activity requires the same amount of time.
– All duration estimates must be whole numbers using my selected time increment. Do not suggest fractions or decimal values.
– If an activity is expected to take less than one increment, round up to the next whole increment, unless it is a genuine zero-duration milestone.
– Use 0 only for milestones, not for activities that require time to complete.
– Base duration estimates on total elapsed duration (calendar time including review periods, approvals, and third-party wait times), NOT just active effort hours.

Format
Present your recommendations in a table containing:
Activity ID | Activity | Suggested duration | Reason

Once we’ve discussed and agreed on the estimates, provide a final table containing the activity IDs and agreed durations, ready for me to enter into Excel.
Ask me which work group I’d like to review next.

Watch your Gantt chart take shape!

Once you’re happy with your duration estimates, enter them into the Duration column of your Excel workbook.

Watch what happens to your Gantt chart as you enter each value! The workbook will automatically calculate the activity dates using your durations and dependencies.

Repeat this process for each work group until you’ve estimated all your activities.

Remember to use 0 for milestones, such as a particular approval or decision point, where no duration is required.

Once you’ve entered everything, take a moment to look at your emerging project timeline. Does anything surprise you? Are activities starting and finishing roughly where you expected?

Before moving on, use the Assigned to column to select who will be responsible for completing each activity. Your resource names are available in the dropdown list.

We’ll review the overall schedule in more detail shortly.

Step 6: Step back and review your plan

Congratulations! You now have a project plan! 🎉

Before you put it to work, take a moment to look at the bigger picture. Your Gantt chart brings all your activities, dependencies and durations together, giving you a visual overview of how your project might unfold.

Consider a few final questions:

Does your project finish within the timeframe you originally allowed?
Are there activities happening at the same time that might compete for the same people or resources?
Do your dependencies make sense, particularly where an activity relies on more than one thing being completed?
Are your duration estimates realistic, allowing for the time people actually have available?
Have you identified who will be responsible for completing each activity?

You can also share your completed plan with AI and ask it to help identify potential scheduling conflicts, unrealistic assumptions or anything else worth reviewing. Remember, its suggestions are just that. You know your project and circumstances best.

Make any final adjustments, save your workbook and you’re ready to go!

And remember, your project plan is a living document. As work progresses, use the Progress column to record how your activities are tracking, review your timeline and make adjustments when circumstances change.

Make it yours:

Your plan is a starting point, not a set of instructions carved in stone. AI can help you organise your thinking, identify activities and build a timeline, but you know your circumstances, priorities and available resources better than it does.

Remember, you don’t have to follow every suggestion AI makes. Keep what adds value, change what doesn’t and make the final decisions your own.

The goal isn’t to create a perfect plan. It’s to create one that helps you move forward.

You don’t need to see every turn in the path to start moving forward. Now you have a plan to help you find your way. 💙