When using ChatGPT, it’s super helpful to keep each conversation focused on one specific topic or type of task. This way, the system learns and remembers the corrections and the topics you discuss in that chat. If you jump between different topics in the same chat, it becomes a bit clumsy. So, if you’re switching gears, starting a new conversation helps keep things neat and easy to refer back to. It’s like keeping your notes sorted by subject! You can also name the conversations for easy identification later on.
Uses That You May Not Have Thought Of
Trip Planning
You can plan your entire vacation itinerary with ChatGPT. It can help estimate the trip’s cost, pick out the best trains and stations for each day, and even assist in finding new restaurants. It can determine which tourist spots to visit and how long you’ll need to explore them. Need help figuring out how to snag tickets? It can assist with that too. It can’t order them for you yet, but that capability is coming with the advent of LAMs (Large Action Models).
If you’re picky with food, no worries. Just tell ChatGPT what you dislike, and it’ll keep those off your meal plan. Want to dive into some new, exciting cuisines? It can suggest great dishes from different cultures and identify the best-reviewed restaurants, especially handy if you’re trying something new.
Here’s a real-life example: We used ChatGPT to plan a trip last December to Washington DC for five days. It was super helpful – it sorted out our hotel, figured out our train into the city, planned which Smithsonian museums we’d visit each day, and even mapped out our food stops. We got to try some amazing new cultural foods. And for my daughter, who hadn’t tried many of these foods before, I had ChatGPT suggest some kid-friendly, entry-level meal options.
Personal Movie Buff
It’s also great for movie and show recommendations. Tell it about a movie or show you liked and ask for 10 similar ones, and boom, it comes back with 10 suggestions of similar content.
But here’s where it gets even cooler. Let’s say you’ve already seen some of those suggestions. You tell ChatGPT, “Hey, I’ve seen these, and I really liked numbers 1, 3, 5, and 8, but not the others.” ChatGPT then tweaks its recommendations to align more with your tastes, ensuring it suggests new content you haven’t seen yet. It’s like having a personalized movie buff at your fingertips!
Meal Planner and Grocery Shopper
It’s also great for recipes. Say you’re on a keto diet and looking for new meal ideas. Just tell ChatGPT, “Create me 7-day recipes for a keto diet, and I don’t want any avocado. Focus on beef and pork, please.” It’ll then come up with 7 great recipes for the week, tailored just for you.
But here’s where it really shines. After you’ve got your recipes, ask ChatGPT to create a grocery list for those meals, considering portions for two people. It’s even better than those meal planners you can buy because it doesn’t just plan your meals – it organizes your shopping too.
And there’s more: if you’ve already got some ingredients at home, let ChatGPT know. It will tweak the grocery list, keeping track of what you already have and what you’ve just bought. If you stay in the same chat, you can drop by a few days later and get new recipe ideas based on what’s still in your pantry. So, at my house, my workflow is like this: my daughter yells at me that she is out of Pop-Tarts, I type in “out of Pop-Tarts,” and then three days later, when I’m placing my grocery order, I ask it to update the grocery list, and it spits it out. Once the order arrives, I tell it that the order was completed, so now it knows what just came in. Essentially, I have a complete grocery inventory in my ChatGPT, and it happened naturally over time. For a single dad who hates shopping, it’s quite amazing.
Just Chat With It
So, the key thing to remember with ChatGPT is that it’s all about chatting. It’s a conversational language model, which means just talking to it as you would with a friend. Tell it what you need – your requests don’t have to be super polished. And if it doesn’t get it right the first time, no big deal. Just let it know. Say something like, “Nah, that tone is not quite right,” or “Hey, this plan sounds too hectic, I’m looking for a more chill vibe for our trip,” or even “This is for a short SMS, can you keep it brief?” It’ll take your feedback and make the necessary tweaks. The more you chat and guide it, the better it gets at understanding your style and needs. So, try to keep your conversations focused on one theme or task. This way, you build up this neat little toolbox of different chats, each one getting smarter and more tailored to what you’re looking for. It’s like training your own personal assistant, one chat at a time!
Be Nice
Last thing: remember to be polite. If the AI overlords ever take over, do you really want to be the person who was mean to it early on?
