Your Week, Sorted: Using AI to Plan Your Jobs

Last month we looked at connecting your systems so review requests happen without you thinking about them. This month, something every installer wrestles with on a Sunday night. The week ahead.

You know the drill. Two teams, jobs across three postcodes, glass arriving Wednesday, a survey to squeeze in, and a customer who's only home on Thursday. It all gets solved in one person's head, then re-solved every time something changes.

AI can't drive the van, but it's very good at exactly this kind of puzzle. Here's how to hand it over.

Step 1. List your jobs

One line per job. Job name, postcode, job type, how long it takes, which team it needs, and any fixed constraint. "Glass arrives Wednesday." "Customer only in Thursday." "Scaffolding comes down Friday." Pull it from your CRM or just type it out. Five minutes.

Step 2. Give it your rules

Tell the AI how your business works. How many teams, who can do what, working hours, and anything else that shapes the week.

Step 3. Ask for the plan

Open ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot. Free versions are fine. Paste your list and add something like this above it: "I run a glazing installation business. Plan my week from this job list. Two teams: Team A (two fitters, can do bays and bifolds), Team B (two fitters). Working day 8am to 4:30pm. Group jobs by postcode to cut travel. The Hartley job can't start before Thursday because the glass arrives Wednesday. Fit the two surveys around the installs, ideally late afternoon. Show me a day-by-day plan for each team and flag anything that doesn't fit."

Step 4. Check what comes back

You'll get a sensible-looking week in seconds. Now apply what only you know. The AI doesn't know the bypass is a car park at 8am, or that a job needs the customer's dog shut in the kitchen before anyone starts. Treat it as a draft from a keen office junior. Correct it and ask it to redo the plan. Second version is usually right.

Step 5. Re-plan when the week breaks

This is where it earns its keep. A fitter rings in sick on Tuesday. A unit fails and the glass won't land until Thursday. Instead of an evening with a whiteboard and a rubber, paste the change into the same chat: "Team B is a man down Tuesday and Wednesday. Rework the rest of the week. The Patel install can't move." Two minutes later you've got options in front of you.

One more tip. Keep it all in the same chat and reuse it. Next Monday, you don't start from scratch. You paste in the new job list and say "same rules as last week". The AI already knows your teams, your hours and your patch rules. Week one is the slowest it will ever be.

The one rule

You own the plan. AI proposes, you decide. Never promise a customer a date the AI picked until you've checked it yourself.

What to expect

Don't expect perfection on day one. Expect a decent first draft of your week that you knock into shape in a couple of minutes. The first week feels fiddly because you're writing the rules down for the first time. By the third week, it's faster than doing it in your head, and mid-week changes stop hurting. As a bonus, those rules you wrote down are now a document. That's half the training manual for whoever plans the week when you're on holiday.

Try it next Monday. Fifteen minutes, a jobs list, and a free AI tool. Worst case, you've lost a quarter of an hour. Best case, you get your Sunday nights back.