🧺 5 Boring Jobs You Should Have Handed To AI Already

There’s a category of job in your life that you’re still doing by hand for no reason anyone can explain. Not the important stuff - the boring stuff. The letter you read three times and still don’t understand. The nightly “what’s for dinner” stand-off with the fridge. The two insurance quotes sitting in tabs you refuse to look at. These jobs share three features: they’re dull, they don’t need your personality, and all the information needed to do them already exists. I call that the handover test, and any job that passes all three should not be done by a human who has better things to do. Which is you.

That’s the actual skill of using AI day to day, by the way. It’s not clever prompting - it’s noticing. Noticing, mid-sigh, “hang on… this is a handover job”. The technology’s been ready for ages; it’s the noticing that takes practice.

So here are the five most common handover jobs hiding in ordinary life - what I’ve come to think of as the Boring Five. For each one: what it is, the exact prompt, and the bit people get wrong. These all work in Claude (my pick) and just as well in ChatGPT.

1. The confusing letter or form

What it is. Anything official that arrives written in that special dialect no human speaks: council tax letters, pension statements, insurance renewals, school forms, anything from HMRC. You paste it in (or snap a photo with the phone app) and get back what it says, whether you need to do anything, and by when.

How to do it:

Nick this one:

I'm going to paste in a letter/form I find confusing. Do four things:
1. Tell me what it's actually saying, in plain language, in 3 sentences or fewer.
2. Tell me if it needs any action from me - and if so, exactly what and by when.
3. Flag anything that looks like a mistake, a sneaky charge, or something I should question.
4. If there's a form to fill in, list what information I'll need to gather before I start.

If anything in it is ambiguous, say so rather than guessing. Here it is: [paste the letter, or attach a photo of it]

The bit people get wrong. They stop at step one. The translation is nice, but “does this need anything from me, and by when” is the part that stops a boring letter quietly becoming an £80 problem. A quick worked example: paste in a car insurance renewal and it’ll spot that the renewal premium has jumped 40% on last year and suggest you ring up or shop around - which is exactly the kind of thing your eyes slide right past at 9pm.

2. The what’s-for-dinner stand-off

What it is. Meal deciding, which is a heavier job than meal cooking and nobody admits it. Instead of staring into the fridge like it owes you money, you tell the AI what’s actually in there and let it do the deciding.

How to do it:

Nick this one:

Here's roughly what's in my fridge and cupboards: [list it - vague is fine, "some sad-looking peppers" is valid data].
Constraints: [feeding how many, any picky eaters or allergies, how much time and energy you've got - "20 minutes and one pan" is a constraint].

Give me three dinner options I can make tonight from mostly this, ranked from least effort to most. For each: what it is in one line, and anything small I'd need to buy. Use up whatever's closest to going off first.

The bit people get wrong. Being too polite about the contents. “Half a jar of pesto, one bendy carrot and some cheese I should probably check” gets you better, realer answers than a tidied-up list, because the AI’s whole job here is working with what’s true. Say you’re feeding two adults and a seven-year-old who’s currently against “bits” - put that in. The seven-year-old’s feelings about bits are load-bearing information.

3. Comparing options you’ve been avoiding

What it is. Insurance quotes, phone contracts, energy tariffs, broadband deals - any decision where the information is sitting right there and you still can’t make yourself read it. You paste in both (or all three) and get a comparison a human can actually use.

How to do it:

Nick this one:

I'm choosing between these options and I keep putting it off. Here are the details of each: [paste the quotes, tariffs or contract summaries - screenshots work too].

What matters to me: [e.g. lowest total cost over the year, no massive excess, flexibility to leave, decent customer service].

Do three things:
1. A short table comparing them on the things I said matter, plus total first-year cost including any fees.
2. Call out anything hiding in the detail - price rises after month 12, excess charges, exit fees, "from" prices.
3. Tell me which you'd pick given my priorities, and what would have to be true for the other one to win.

The bit people get wrong. Skipping the “what matters to me” line, which turns the answer from your decision into a generic one. Worked example: two phone contracts, one £2 a month cheaper. State that you care about total cost and being able to leave, and the comparison will surface that the cheaper one has a mid-contract price rise clause and a 24-month term - at which point the decision makes itself. Worth knowing, though: the AI only knows what you paste. It’s comparing your documents brilliantly, not scanning the whole market - a comparison site does the gathering, this does the understanding.

4. Gifts and occasions

What it is. The recurring panic of birthdays, thank-yous, teacher presents and “we should get them something”. You describe the person; it does the creative thinking you’d normally do in a garden centre twenty minutes before closing.

How to do it:

Nick this one:

I need a gift idea. The person: [age, relationship to you, three things they're into, one thing they always say or do]. Budget: [amount]. Occasion: [what it is]. Things already done to death: [candles, socks, whatever this person has too many of].

Give me 8 ideas: a few safe, a few more original, at least one that's an experience rather than an object, and at least one homemade or low-cost option that doesn't feel cheap. One line each on why it fits THIS person.

The bit people get wrong. Describing the category instead of the person. “Gift for my mum, 60s” gets you the same list as everyone else’s mum. “My mum, late 60s, allotment obsessive, does the crossword in pen, has strong opinions about supermarket tomatoes” gets you ideas that make her feel seen - which was always the actual brief. That fourth detail, the thing they always say or do, is where the good ideas come from.

5. Anything with more than three moving parts

What it is. The kid’s birthday party. The in-laws visiting for a long weekend. Moving house. The moment a task involves more than three things that depend on each other, your brain stops holding it as a plan and starts holding it as dread. Give it the juggling; you stay on cake and balloons.

How to do it:

Nick this one:

Help me plan this properly: [describe the thing - e.g. "my daughter's 8th birthday party, about 12 kids, at home, in 3 weeks, budget around £150"].

Give me:
1. A checklist of everything that needs doing, grouped by when - this week, next week, the days before, on the day.
2. Anything I need to book or buy EARLY, flagged at the top.
3. Three things people commonly forget with this kind of thing.
4. Then ask me 3 questions that would improve this plan.

The bit people get wrong. Treating the first checklist as final and rushing off. That last line - then ask me 3 questions - is where the plan gets good, because its questions (“indoor or garden? any allergies among the twelve? is there a theme, and how much does she care about the theme?”) surface things you knew but hadn’t told it. Answer them, get the revised plan, and the dread quietly converts back into a list.

The small print

The Boring Five takes the thinking-and-untangling out of these jobs, not the doing. Somebody still has to buy the pesto, post the form and ring the insurer, and I regret to inform you it’s still you. It also can’t see anything you don’t give it - no peering into your actual fridge, no reading the letter still in its envelope. And for anything with real money or legal weight, its summary is a brilliant first pass, not the final word: read the original before you sign.

The one to start with tonight

Next time a confusing letter arrives, don’t read it three times. Read it zero times - photograph it, use prompt one, and see how it feels to have that particular chore leave your life. That feeling is what gets the other four adopted.

Once these five feel normal, you’ll start spotting handover jobs everywhere - and there’s a ready-made stack of them, prompts included, in The 10 Prompts That Do Your Admin.