Let me show you my favorite ChatGPT tips for making the most out of AI.
Everyday ChatGPT Tricks
Let’s take a detailed tour of the best ChatGPT tips and tricks you have to know!
Use an “Info Drop”
ChatGPT responds to every message, even when you’re still adding more info. This makes it hard to send multiple pieces of data without interruptions.
That’s why I created this prompt:
I will be sending you several pieces of information. Your role is to simply acknowledge that you’ve received each one. Once I’ve shared everything, I will provide additional instructions on what to do next. Please wait for these instructions after all the details have been sent.
This way you can send information, such as text, images, and data to the chat without ChatGPT processing and responding to it.
I recommend saving this prompt somewhere close.
If you use a Mac, you can create a text replacement so that when you type “infodrop” it will replace that with the above prompt.
Here’s how:
- First, open up your System Settings.
- Scroll down to where it says “Keyboard.”
- Click on “Text Replacements.”
- You will see a modal like this:
- Click on the “+” icon.
Give your shortcut a name. Whenever you use this word, Mac will replace it with the prompt.
For example, here’s what I did:
- Replace: infodrop
- With: (The prompt I showed you earlier.)
Click “Add” to use this shortcut.
Tip: Use a word that you normally wouldn’t use because Mac will replace it every time from this point on. To remove a replacement, select the replacement and click on the “ — ” icon.
Now, when you type the word in the “Replace” column, it will replace that with the long prompt.
This way you don’t have to type it every time or find where you’ve saved it. Isn’t that handy? Feel free to do this on other prompts you’re using often!
Ask for Instructions on Images
Use ChatGPT to get help with everyday devices by sending it an image.
You can make it easier for you by downloading the mobile app so you don’t need to do this on a computer.
For example, I have an LED light that has buttons I don’t understand. Instead of having to look for the product page online or the user manual from when I bought the device, I just sent an image to ChatGPT.
Here’s the conversation:
Isn’t that amazing? That’s 15 seconds of work and now I know exactly how to use it.
This can be helpful when you build something if you need product information, usage recommendations, and more. Just take an image and let the AI find the information for you.
This way you no longer need to wait in the customer support chats or have to watch ads while desperately looking for tutorials.
Tone Down
Use ChatGPT to tone down your angry messages.
- This is useful if you’re sending emails or messages in a mood that you can’t think clearly.
- Also, if you’re not aware that your writing style is passive-aggressive or not polite, ChatGPT can make a difference.
Just tell the AI that you want it to tone down your message.
Here’s the original message:
Hi, I’m quitting this s****y job. The company culture sucks. The atmosphere is terrible and I just feel like this is not for me. I get nothing done here. My salary is way too low. I want to get out as quickly as possible as I’m sure I will find a 10x better job.
Here’s the AI-written version:
I wanted to inform you that I’ve decided to resign from my position. After careful consideration, I feel that the company environment and role are not the right fit for me, and I believe it’s time for me to pursue new opportunities that align more closely with my goals and values.
I’d like to ensure a smooth transition, so please let me know how I can assist during this process.
Thank you for the opportunity, and I wish the team all the best moving forward.
Much better!
Ask for Best Practices
My business partner asked me to introduce him and my colleague via email.
I had never done this before so I didn’t know how to make it happen the right way.
So I opened up ChatGPT and told my problem:
Here’s what I got back:
Assign a Role
To get better responses from ChatGPT, assign it a role. For example, you can start your conversation with “You’re a lawyer.”
When you do that, you’re adding context to your messages.
You can even add more information to the role to make it even more accurate.
For example, “You’re a senior-level developer working in my team. I’m a junior developer under your supervision. Your task is to guide me with practical and helpful examples based on your years of experience as a programmer in this company.”
This can help ChatGPT tailor the answers better to your specific needs and skill level.
If you tell the AI that it is an elementary school teacher, it will give you a lot simpler answers.
Add Context
To get better responses from ChatGPT, it makes sense to add more context to the inputs you send to it.
- A basic input: “List 5 things to do in the countryside.”
- A good input: “I’ve traveled the countryside with my family. I have 4 kids ages 7,9,11,13 and me and my wife. The younger two are girls and the older two are boys. My wife has problems with her back, though. Can you suggest some funny activities or things to do if we get bored here? The weather is expected to be nice summer weather with some not-too-hot days. We would not like to buy anything, though, as we’re on a strict budget right now. List 5 things we can do together to not get bored.”
With the first message, I got a generic response:
To the second message, I got a much more detailed and tailored response:
This is called prompt engineering. It’s a scary technical term but it just means giving context to inputs so that the AI can give you better responses.
Ask for Follow-Ups
To get accurate responses from ChatGPT, ask it to ask you questions before answering.
For example, here’s what ChatGPT told me to do when bored:
That looks good but I’m not able to work out right now. That’s why I asked ChatGPT to ask me questions one by one to know me better and then suggest activities based on that:
With the follow-ups, ChatGPT realized that I should either watch a new series or do some gaming.
This is a good way to provide extra context for the AI. If you just send it a simple message and expect a response, it will be generic. But by asking the AI to ask all the necessary follow-ups, you can get a much better reply.
Forget about Typos
One of my favorite ChatGPT timesavers is the fact that it doesn’t care about typos. The AI can infer from the context what you meant.
So don’t waste your time fixing or polishing your messages. Just send those as is. This can save you a ton of time especially if you use AI a lot.
For example, I asked ChatGPT what is the distance to the moon in a barely readable way.
Yet it gave me a perfect answer.
If you spend 1 minute every day fixing typos, that is roughly 6 hours in a year. Just don’t do it. The AI doesn’t care.
That’s how you save one day of work every year.
Ask for Links for Information
AI doesn’t know. It doesn’t think. That’s why you can’t trust AI responses.
One way you can make the fact-checking process a bit easier, though, is by asking AI for links to resources. You can then manually check that the AI response is in line with the resources.
However, you need to be careful here. If you ask ChatGPT for links, very similar to how it can give you bad answers, it can give you useless links. It might even give you completely made-up links that don’t work.
ChatGPT might easily refer to a resource that has been written with AI and is completely made up and incorrect.
That’s why you should check that the links point to a truly usable and legitimate site that you trust.
Use the Socratic Teaching Method
For example, here’s a conversation where the AI taught me about gravity with the Socratic Teaching Method:
- Me: You’re my high school teacher. Use the Socratic Teaching method to teach me how gravity works.
- ChatGPT: Alright! Let’s explore gravity using the Socratic method, which is all about guiding you with questions to help you uncover the concepts yourself. To start: What do you think happens when you drop an apple from your hand? Why do you think it falls to the ground?
- Me: I think it falls. I think Earth pulls it in.
- ChatGPT: Great! So, you’re suggesting that Earth pulls the apple toward itself. What do you think is the reason Earth can pull the apple? Why doesn’t the apple just float away?
- Me: Earth has some kind of a force field.
- ChatGPT: That’s an interesting way to put it! You’re right in thinking that Earth has something that pulls objects toward it. The force you’re describing is called gravity. Now, what do you think makes this “force field” of Earth stronger or weaker? Why might gravity be stronger for something heavier, like a rock, compared to something lighter, like a feather?
- Me: Because it’s bigger. I don’t know.
- ChatGPT: You’re on the right track! The size, or mass, of Earth, plays a big role in its ability to pull objects. But let me ask you this: if you were to take two objects, say a rock and a feather, and put them in a vacuum (where there’s no air), what do you think would happen if you dropped them at the same time? Would they fall at the same rate?
- Me: No.
- ChatGPT: Actually, it might surprise you to know that in a vacuum, both the rock and the feather would fall at the same rate! This happens because gravity pulls on all objects equally, regardless of their mass, when there’s no air resistance. So, if gravity pulls objects equally, why do you think objects like feathers fall more slowly when there’s air?
Here the AI is making me think with every question to gravitate me towards the right answers (no pun intended.)
Because no real person is asking, I can be much more free with my responses as I don’t have to worry about being embarrassed.
To do the same, tell ChatGPT that you want it to be your teacher and to use the Socratic Teaching Method.
Fix Grammar without Wording
One of the best ways to use ChatGPT is by asking it to fix your grammar mistakes while keeping the rest of the content untouched.
I think this is one of the best yet most underrated ways to use AI.
When you write text, such as essays, presentations, emails, or blog posts, you want to keep your tone of voice. Otherwise, the content ends up being too generic and AI-like.
That’s why it’s best if you whip up the content from scratch but then use AI as a “final layer” to fix those silly mistakes. This way you can focus on writing without having to be perfect everywhere and wasting time by being careful.
Simplify
When I write, I tend to overthink my sentences. What could be said in two sentences with 20 words I say in 50 words and 4 sentences.
That’s where ChatGPT can help you.
As I already mentioned, ChatGPT is really good when you ask it to rephrase existing information.
To simplify a complex sentence, you can tell ChatGPT something like this:
Summarize this piece of text so that it’s much shorter, uses simple and understandable language, and is helpful and clear. No jargon. No filler words. Avoid passive voice.
Browse Online
ChatGPT has access to the internet. You can use it to do the search and research for you — at least partially.
For example, I asked ChatGPT who I am and it knew the answer even though I’m not a public figure. That’s because it used my name in the search.
However, it used some old resources so the answer is not what I’m “best known for.”
You need to be very careful with the GPT search.
When you use AI to search the web, it can open up older outdated results and give answers based on those.
For example, I once asked how a soccer game ended, and it referred to a match that was played 3 months ago between the same teams!
Another issue is in the content quality of search results.
I’m a search engine expert and I’ve got some bad news: The way Google organizes search results is a complete mess. You have AI-written, generic, biased, and even plagiarized content at the top of the search results.
The AI reads those junk pages when you ask it to search the web.
So, even though ChatGPT can save time from having to go through the search results, the information is not better than the top search results.
If you’re bored with those biased product recommendations, false information, and jargonized content, that’s where the AI gets its information too!
Ask for Feedback
Whether you’re writing an essay, blog post, job application, or just a traditional email, you can ask AI for feedback.
For example, I write a lot of blog posts. I know that to get views, my post needs to be the best post. That’s why I always ask ChatGPT to give me feedback to make my post the best post on the internet.
The same goes for homework, essays, and such. If you want to get a good impression, your writing has to be flawless and the research needs to be thorough.
That’s where you can use ChatGPT for help. Just send it a piece of content and ask it to make it much better.
Summarize News
News articles are optimized to keep you on the platform as long as possible. Information you could read and digest in 15 seconds takes at least 3–5 minutes.
Except for today thanks to AI.
These days, you can copy-paste a news post to ChatGPT and tell it to summarize it in 50–100 words.
ChatGPT can hallucinate when creating content from scratch, but when the information is there, it gives accurate answers and summaries.
Use as Prompt Engineer
Prompt Engineering is a “future career” everyone talks about. It’s the skill of optimizing the questions you ask ChatGPT to get better answers.
Unlike the “gurus” say, prompt engineering is not hard. It’s literally just about telling the AI exactly what your problem is.
- Bad prompt: “I want to eat pizza”
- Good prompt: “We’re out here in Helsinki with 6 friends and want to eat pizza. We’re all on budget as we’re a group of students. It’s 11 PM, by the way.”
The latter prompt is much more detailed and has all the useful information that ChatGPT needs to give you a better answer.
What’s cool about prompt engineering is that AI can do that too.
If you don’t know what to ask ChatGPT, ask it to tell you what to ask.
For example, here I’ve asked ChatGPT to write a prompt for my piece of art:
Yes, I told ChatGPT to write a message I can send back to it to get the desired result.
I sent that message back to ChatGPT’s AI and here’s what I got:
That’s incredible!
Now, who said I need to learn prompt engineering when the AI can already do that?
You can apply this to anything. Just let the AI prompt itself for epic results.
Draw Inspiration
I wish AI could write all my blog posts, video scripts, and emails. But it simply can’t. The answers are way too generic and jargonized.
That’s because AI doesn’t think. It doesn’t interact with people. It doesn’t test products and workflows. It doesn’t read your thoughts.
It merely predicts words one after another.
When it comes to writing content, AI is not much of a help because it doesn’t add anything new to the table.
But it’s good for inspiration.
You can ask AI to write a blog post, email, or whatever written piece of content and pick inspiration from it.
For example, if I were to write a tutorial on how to start programming, I would be lost because I’ve done that for nearly 10 years. I can no longer relate with beginners that well.
That’s where I can use ChatGPT. I can ask it to ask me questions that a beginner might have. I can tell it to write about the basics and make sure that my content targets the right knowledge level.
Speak to It Like a Human
Remember that you can talk to ChatGPT like a human. That’s the whole point! Describe your problems as accurately as possible to get the best answers. Use natural language you would use with anyone else.
Just don’t be fooled by the responses. There’s no human or anything near that giving you those answers. AI doesn’t think. It just predicts what the best word is after the other.
Don’t Pay for AI
I had the Premium ChatGPT for about a year. But I realized I don’t really need it because the free version is good.
Also, you can use the ChatGPT Premium features every day for a limited number of times. If you find yourself running out of credits a lot of times, perhaps then consider buying the paid plan.
Understand the Limitations
AI is not perfect. Not even close. That’s something you have to understand before using a tool like this.
Here are some shortcomings of ChatGPT:
- ChatGPT might provide incorrect or outdated information, especially on specialized or niche topics. Always double-check critical details.
- ChatGPT doesn’t truly understand context or reality — it follows and repeats patterns in its training data.
- AI is broad but not an expert in everything. It easily misses nuances in complex fields like medicine, law, or finance.
- ChatGPT doesn’t “know” current events unless linked to live updates or search tools. (For example, with the ChatGPT Search you can access real-time information.)
- Avoid sharing personal, sensitive, or confidential information — your input can be stored or processed.
In other words, use ChatGPT as a tool. Not as a source of truth or a superintelligent creature. It’s so far from that still.
ChatGPT Interface Tips
1. Bookmark Chats
Every ChatGPT conversation has a unique URL. You can link to a specific chat and save it to your bookmarks.
This way you can access answers or data that you’ve shared with ChatGPT earlier that you need to access again.
If you do this, make sure to give the chat an accurate name.
On Mac, right-click on the Bookmarks bar and choose “Add Page.”
Then give the page a name and hit enter. That attaches the ChatGPT chat to the top bar.
2. Use Eye-Easy Mode
If you use ChatGPT a lot, use the dark mode. That’s easier for the eyes.
To activate the dark mode, head over to Settings.
Then activate the dark mode.
3. Voice Conversation
Did you know you can have a full-fledged conversation with ChatGPT?
To do this, download the ChatGPT app for your mobile device. (And be careful with the fake apps.)
To use the voice conversation feature, click on the right-most audio icon in the app. Then just talk to the AI and let it respond.
I find this useful when driving alone. I once had a 20-minute chat related to marketing and sales funnels as I was driving back home late at night. Was a fruitful conversation!
4. Rename Chats
ChatGPT automatically gives a name to your chats. However, I find those hard to remember and sometimes they’re not accurate because the chat has a million topics.
Luckily, you can change the name of your chat easily. Just click the three dots on a chat and give it a more descriptive name.
5. Delete Chats
If you have too many chats, you can also delete those. Similar to renaming, you can click on the three dots and click “Delete” to get rid of a chat for good.
To delete all chats at once, go to Settings.
Then delete all the chats.
I had over 200 conversations so this took a second. If you have a lot of chats, it might take a minute for the chats to get destroyed.
6. Clear Memory
ChatGPT sometimes gives an update that says “Memory updated.”
That’s because ChatGPT accumulates a memory about the things you say to improve the responses.
However, this can mislead the AI too.
If this is the case, you can reset the memory easily.
Click on your profile icon and choose “Settings.”
Then go to Personalization and reset memories:
Top Use Cases
Let’s take a look at more specific yet common use cases for ChatGPT next.
Explain Science
Ask ChatGPT to explain a scientific phenomenon or fact in simple terms. I often tell it to explain it to a child when teaching me.
Assess Homework
As a student, you can ask ChatGPT to take a look at your homework too. You can ask for grades, and feedback, and help fix mistakes.
A question I asked from ChatGPT:
A perfect step-by-step answer it gave me:
Create Tables
It’s surprisingly common to find information in written format that could be much more consumable if it was a table or a list.
For example, take a look at this exercise sheet:
That’s cool but it would be easier to read that if it was a table… Let’s tell ChatGPT to turn that into one.
Couldn’t be easier, huh? I just dropped the image of that exercise sheet into ChatGPT and told it to turn that into a table.
I even told it to change the table so that I could print it and mark exercises complete.
That’s incredible. Once again, it’s not something that would be impossible to do by hand. But thanks to AI, this took 15 seconds. If I had to type that all by hand or by a computer manually, that would be at least a couple of minutes of work.
Help with Excel Sheets
Speaking of tables, one of the best ways to use ChatGPT is for Excel formulas. Many people avoid learning them because they seem intimidating, and even those who do often forget them since they’re not used daily.
For example, to calculate the sum of a column, ask AI:
You can ask it pretty much anything related to Excel.
Tip: Don’t forget that you can also drop Excel sheets for ChatGPT chat directly for better analysis. Just be cautious not to use files with sensitive information!
Create a Fitness Plan
Today, you no longer need to buy an online fitness program or course. AI can do a better job within seconds.
Instead of paying $99 for a fitness influencer to get a generic training program, I told ChatGPT about my goals:
Here’s what it gave me:
So that’s not just a training plan but also a meal plan.
As someone who has been lifting for at least 9 years, this is spot on. The exercises are legit and the meal plan looks exactly as it should.
I’m sure I’d get exactly the same results with this program that I’ve been using already.
So if you want a nutritionist or gym workout routine, just ask AI. (However, if you have physical limitations or for example, allergies, consult a real professional.)
Plan Vacations
These days, planning vacations is a lot easier, thanks to ChatGPT.
Before the AI days, you had to use Google and search for things like “10 places to visit in Finland.”
Then you would find a bunch of generic commercial content flooded with ads and biased recommendations by accommodation sites and affiliate blogs.
Instead of searching for “Best places to visit”, you can tell the AI exactly what kind of group you’re traveling with, what your desires are, what your budget is, and so on.
Generate Use Cases
Lastly, don’t forget that AI can also come up with use cases for itself.
Whatever you’re working on or studying, ask ChatGPT for inspiration for use cases tailored to your role.
Just don’t assume every suggestion is good. Remember, AI can’t think. It hasn’t applied these tips and use cases in the field so these are just ideas and creative but often poor guesses. But you can find inspiration from these.
Thanks for reading! What are your favorite tips? Let me know in the comments!