Your Copilot at work workbook.

A short working session for you and your team, about 30 minutes. Don't just read it, fill it in. By the end you'll know where your week goes, which quick wins to start with, the prompts worth keeping, the safe-use rules, and a calm 90-day plan. Type straight into the boxes and save as a PDF, or print it and write on it.

The idea, in brief. Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI assistant built into Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams. It's great at the everyday reading, writing and summarising that eats your day, and gives you a strong first draft fast. Ask it with context, audience and format, then refine. Keep secrets and data you can't share out of it, and keep a human on anything that matters. Start with a couple of jobs, prove the time saved, then widen it.

1Where does my week go?

Think back over a normal week. Jot down the repetitive reading, writing and admin that eats your time, roughly how long it takes, and which app it happens in. This shows you where Copilot will pay off most.

The task	Time a week	Which app

2Quick-win checklist, app by app

Tick the ones that match jobs you actually do, then star the two or three to start with this week. Pick high-value, low-risk wins, not the trickiest thing you've got.

Outlook: summarise long email threads to get the gist fast. Outlook: draft replies in the tone I choose, then read before sending. Teams: turn on the recap or notetaker for meeting notes and action items. Word: first drafts and rewrites, then edit into our own voice. Word: summarise long documents and contracts before reading the detail. PowerPoint: build a starter deck from a tidy Word document. Excel: ask plain-English questions of the data and get answers back. Excel: have simple formulas built and explained, sanity-checked after. The two or three I'll start with this week:

3Prompt pack worksheet

Good prompts give context, audience and format, then refine. Write a few you'll reuse for your real jobs. A shared "prompts that work for us" list is the fastest way to bring the team along.

Prompt 1 (the job, who it's for, and the format you want): Prompt 2: Prompt 3: Where we'll keep the shared prompt pack (a doc, a channel, a note):

4Safe-use checklist

Agree this so everyone uses Copilot with confidence instead of guessing. Tick what's true, and write the specifics where it asks. If you don't have an AI policy yet, the free JDCS AI policy course helps you write one.

We keep passwords, bank details and the like out of any AI tool. We handle customer and staff data the way our policy says, and when in doubt, leave it out. A person reads and checks anything customer-facing, factual, financial or legal before it goes. We say when Copilot is taking notes in a meeting, so it's never a surprise. Who owns our AI safe-use rules (and where they're written down):

5Your 90-day plan

Small steps, proven one at a time. Write what you'll actually do in each stretch, and who's leading it.

Weeks 1 to 2: the two jobs we'll do until they're second nature: Weeks 3 to 6: building the shared prompt pack and bringing more people in: Weeks 7 to 12: which apps and people we widen to, with the rules clear: Who's leading the rollout:

Finished it?

Do something with it.

Use Save as PDF up top to keep a copy for your team. Or send it to me for a free second opinion, and I'll email a copy of your answers to your inbox as well.

Your Copilot at work workbook.

Sent, thanks.