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A free guide by Mariah Brunner ↗ INSTAGRAM ↗ TIKTOK

One Goal.
One AI Plan.

You don’t need the perfect AI setup. You need one goal and a simple plan. Here’s the worksheet I’d fill in if I were starting today.

This guide was sparked by Brandon Strittmatter’s essay Nobody knows anything. His point fits way beyond coding. Chasing the best AI workflow keeps you busy and ships nothing. Start with a good model, find the real gap, and build only what you need.

AI is so new that nobody really knows anything yet, including me. Everything I share is an option. So fill this in, then go use AI on something that matters to you.

↓ Download The Worksheet (.txt)

Print it, or paste it into a note. Rather have AI walk you through it? Paste this into a new chat in Claude or ChatGPT and answer its questions. You’ll get your one-page plan at the end.

Interview Me And Build My Plan
Interview me and build my one-page AI plan around one goal. Ask me one question at a time, starting with what I want most right now, and help me turn it into a goal with a number and a date. Then ask where my time goes each week and help me pick the one task where AI could help most. Ask which AI tool I'm most comfortable with, and plan four small weeks using only that tool. Don't suggest skills, agents or new tools unless I'm repeating instructions, have an ongoing job, or need something on a schedule. When we're done, give me a one-page plan with my goal, my one AI use, my tool, my four weeks and the question I'll ask every Friday: is this helping my goal?
The Worksheet

01

Pick one goal

One. If you pick three, you’ll spend your time switching between them. Start with whichever matters most this season.

  1. Get promoted. By June 30, I’m promoted to senior account manager.
  2. Grow your side hustle. By March 31, it makes $2,000 a month.
  3. Get 10 hours a week back. By the end of January, I’m offline by 5:30 four nights a week.

Write it as one sentence. By [date], I will [a result you can count], so that [why you care]. Then write down the one number you’ll check every week and where it sits today. If you can’t count it, keep rewriting until you can.

02

Find where your time goes

List the five tasks you do each week for this goal, or the busywork stealing time from it. Next to each, write the hours and whether you dread it.

Now pick one task for AI. The best first pick happens every week, takes at least an hour, and is easy for you to check. Write down what AI will do (draft, research, summarize, organize) and what you’ll still do yourself.

Not sure where to start? My AI task audit prompt sorts your whole week into what to hand off first.

03

Pick one tool and go deep

Use one tool for the next 30 days. Claude and ChatGPT both work great here. Pick the one you already feel comfortable opening.

I’m obviously biased toward Avori, because I built it to be the easiest way to get ahead with AI. It comes with agents and skills I already know work really well, so you spend less time building and connecting things. It’s invite-only right now, so join the waitlist if you want in, and start with Claude or ChatGPT today.

Set it up once. Make one Project for this goal (Projects, then New Project in Claude, or New project in the ChatGPT sidebar). Paste a short note about you and your goal into its instructions, and add a few examples of good work. Every chat in that Project starts with that context.

04

Make a 30-day plan

Small and doable. Twenty to thirty minutes a session is plenty.

  1. Week 1. Do your one task with AI three times. Save the prompt that worked best.
  2. Week 2. Use AI every time that task comes up. Jot down what you keep correcting.
  3. Week 3. Fix those corrections for good. Add them to your Project instructions or your saved prompt.
  4. Week 4. Check your number. Keep the task, change how you use AI for it, or swap to the next task on your list.

05

Add things only with a reason

New AI tools will tempt you every single day. Add one only when you hit one of these three moments.

  1. Repeating the same instructions? A skill might help. A skill is saved instructions AI pulls in whenever that task comes up, so you stop retyping them. Build one with my 10-minute skills guide, or the ChatGPT version in my ChatGPT setup guide.
  2. Have an ongoing job for AI? An agent might help. An agent is AI you hand a job to, with the context and connected tools to keep doing it. Here’s skill vs workflow vs agent in plain English, and how to set up your first agent.
  3. Need it done on a schedule? Add a routine. A scheduled task is a prompt that runs by itself, like every Monday at 8am. Claude has scheduled tasks on paid plans, and ChatGPT has its own scheduled tasks. My Cowork guide walks through setting one up.

Write down the date, what you added, and which reason it matched. No reason yet? Put it on the skip-for-now list.

06

Check in every Friday

Five minutes, one question. Is this helping me toward my goal? Write your number down. If something isn’t helping, skip it for now. You can always come back to it.

Paste this at the end of each week into the same Project, so AI knows your goal and your history.

Friday Check-In
It's my weekly check-in. My goal is [your goal with the number and date], and this week I used [tool] for [the one task]. Here's what happened: [what worked and what didn't]. Tell me straight whether this is moving my goal and what to keep doing. Give me one small change for next week. If I mention something new I want to try, ask me how it helps my goal before you help me set it up.
You Are Not Behind

Everyone is figuring this out in real time. If the flood of AI news makes you feel behind, here’s how I stay ahead without getting overwhelmed. Once your one use is working, the 60/30/10 framework is a simple way to decide how much time goes to what works versus trying new things.

Start Today

Fill in Step 1 before you close this page. Just the goal sentence. Everything else gets easier once you know what you’re using AI for.