Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign welcome to ChatGPT Curious, a podcast for people who are, well, curious about ChatGPT. I'm, um, your host, Dr. Shantae Cofield, also known as the Maestro, and I created this show to explore what ChatGPT actually is. Really though, are the files in the computer, how to use it, and what it might mean for how we think, work, create and move through life. Whether you're skeptical, intrigued, or already experimenting, you're in the right place. All that I ask is that you stay curious. All right, let's get into it.
[00:00:37] Hello, hello, hello my curious people, and welcome to episode 16 of, uh, Chat GPT Curious. I am your grateful host, the Maestro, and today we are talking about how to use Chat GPT for repetitive tasks. This folks, is an area where I think ChatGPT and AI in general just really shines. Like, let's let the robots do the work.
[00:01:00] Of note, I think this is also an area where Jacky Beatty in particular can definitely improve.
[00:01:07] But in general, repetitive tasks are a phenomenal thing to outsource to AI. I have spoken about this in a few other episodes. Um, one of them was ChatGPT for content creation. Another one was helpful features you might not know about.
[00:01:21] Um, and in other episodes where I've simply spoken about how I use ChatGPT that week. But I figured it would be helpful to do a single specific episode dedicated to the idea on the topic of ChatGPT for repetitive tasks. So here we are.
[00:01:38] Now, clearly I am speaking about computer related tasks. Like, yes, it would be amazing to have it do your laundry and the dishes. My head immediately goes to Rosie from the Jetsons, but we don't have that. We're very far from that. So we, although, you know, we got like Robovax, things like that. I have one of those works well. Uh, but we're talking about computer tasks. And like I've mentioned before, AI works best as an assistant, not as a replacement. Meaning has it currently stands, you're still going to have to check its work and perhaps do some editing. But it should, could, would, will, likely, will, hopefully if you do it right, cut down on your total work time.
[00:02:19] It is also important for me to, to mention, as I say that and cutting down on your work time that, you know, I say this on the home page of my website that I work so hard to build. So check it out if you haven't already. Chat GPT curious.com check, check it out. I actually worked on it today. Um, but I'm here to promote AI usage as a way to Create time for you to be more human, right? So you can create time to go do the, that you love to do with the people that you want to be around. Not so you can just like, work more. Unless you love working, then by all means, go work. Right? But I'm not here, ah, you know, under the, the guys, the umbrella, the scary face of capitalism, and just the shitty side of grind culture and hustle culture. Like, I'm here, I'm not here to promote productivity for the sake of productivity. Um, we're talking about get done a little easier, a little quicker, a little faster so that you can go to the you really want to be doing, right?
[00:03:11] So a, uh, few examples of repetitive tasks that I've had ChatGPT help me with. I'll give you a few. Because I know that, uh, it can be hard to like, think of these things on your own. You're like, well, maybe I have some. So I'm going to give you a list of ones that I use it for. Uh, maybe that will help you out. So first, I use it with for bolding. I write a lot. I write a lot of emails every week, and I hate deciding what to bold. And you know, what's going to help with emphasis and clarity. I hate doing it because I, I just write it out first. I don't bold it as I go. And I'm like, I don't want to go back and look through it.
[00:03:45] It's all important to me. I'm about, I'm about to bold the whole thing.
[00:03:49] Uh, So I have ChatGPT do that for me.
[00:03:52] Uh, creating the show notes and the curious companion newsletter for this podcast, coming up with a title and the preview text for my paid blog. I have a paid blog. Maybe you don't know about. It's called my Stream Musings. I'll link it, check it out in the show notes. Um, but to come up with a title for that and the preview text, I have ChatGPT do that, uh, asking Chachi PT this is a little bit of a meta repetitive task and that it's a repetitive Chat GPT task, right? I ask Chat GPT to summarize my writing every time I write something, uh, all those emails and stuff that I'm writing, I ask it to summarize it and make sure this way I can make sure that the point that I was trying to make was made. Uh, and so that is a task that I've automated, uh, within ChatGPT so that it's not like I have to do so Many steps to get it to do that for me each time, right? And then lastly, answering the same fucking question over and over again from clients.
[00:04:45] I have automated this repetitive task for specifically for my Instagram intensive. I haven't done it across the board, uh, but I started out with using it for my Instagram intensive and I am super stoked with the results. So we're going to talk about how I did this for all you know, how I did, however, how I outsourced to uh, every, all of this stuff to chat GPT. So what your specific repetitive tasks are, I don't know, I got no clue.
[00:05:11] But hopefully that list gave you a few ideas for use cases. Right? To me, anytime you have a task that you have to do exactly the same over and over, it's worth investigating whether or not some sort of automation exists to help you out. Right? Be a chat. Wow. Be it chat GPT, some other tech or AI or whatever. I'm looking as I'm recording this. I have a thing called Stream Deck and it's basically, it's uh, like a piece of hardware that has software with it. It plugged into the computer and it creates shortcuts for all the things that I open all the time on the computer. It is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly helpful. I just push a button and the template for my podcast opens up. I push a button and the specific, uh, drive folder opens up. Or the specific. I use Dropbox as well because I'm old. That folder will open up, right? I, I have tons and tons of shortcuts and I just have to push a single button.
[00:06:06] Super, super helpful, right? We love when a company wises up and does it for us. Best example of this is Zoom partnering with Vimeo. And now your recordings, your, your Zoom recordings automatically get uploaded into Vimeo. Immediately. Yes, immediately, yes. So I'm always looking for where else in life I can do this without using Zapier. Like I've never been a fan. Now just now it's just like out of principle I'm like, I refuse to uh, right. But like uh, in theory, yes, it's like that's what I want you to be doing though. It's like, are there ways that we can automate things? Because I don't like Zapiers. Cause it breaks that you have to pay for it. I'm like, ah, this is annoying to me, but if you like it, amazing. Love this for you. But you get what I'm saying in that the whole goal is hey, I have to do this task over and over and over again. Is there a way to make this more efficient? Is there a way that I can outsource this to the robots? So without further ado, allow me to present the five steps that I recommend you take to use ChatGPT for repetitive tasks. Step number one, identify the repetitive task. Step number two, identify your process and the desired outcome. Step number three, create a new project. There it is. I've talked about it before. It's my favorite feature in, I almost said in Instagram. My favorite feature in ChatGPT. A project. Create a new project in ChatGPT that will be used for that specific task.
[00:07:26] Step four, have ChatGPT. Here we go. Help you create instructions for that task and paste those instructions into the specific project. Project. Step five, test and refine.
[00:07:38] So let's break it down here. Step one, that's identifying the repetitive task, right? This is more of an awareness thing. It's self explanatory. Figure out the things that are repetitive and be like, hey, can I get the robots to help me with this?
[00:07:51] Step two, identify your process and desired outcome. Breaking down the process into the individual steps can be helpful in my opinion, if you realize you can't necessarily, especially I should say if you realize you can't automate the whole entire process but. Or if you're from Canadia process. Right? Uh, but maybe perhaps you realize that you can automate just a certain part of it which would still be helpful. Right? Uh, within this step, the most important thing is having really good examples of the starting point and the finished, finalized, perfect outcome. Right? So like whatever you type, like your first draft, you want an example of that and then you want an example of the final copy of the thing, right?
[00:08:31] So step three is create a new project in ChatGPT and it's going to be used for that specific repetitive task. So I have spoken about projects in previous episodes. It is hands down my favorite feature of CHAT GPT. Think of projects like folders, right? They are a place to separate and organize the different things that you are working on.
[00:08:51] One of the best parts about projects is that you can save instructions for each of them. And last month, uh, I think it was last month ChatGPT introduced Project Only memory, which is a cool feature if you want to like wall off what you're working on and not have it bleed into the rest of your account. Like the best use case for this would be if you work on things for clients or other people and you want to keep their separate from, from yours.
[00:09:14] Right? Uh, so to create a project, very simple you're in CHAT gbt, you go to the sidebar on the left side of the screen and above the the chats section, it says projects. And you're just going to click new project. That's it. From there, name it. Like, I have one that says bolding. I have one that says ChatGPT. Curious. Uh, I have one that's for my emails, I have one that's for my blogs, and it's named accordingly.
[00:09:36] So name it. And then don't worry about adding instructions. Right. First I suggest creating the project, just creating the folders. That's essentially what it is.
[00:09:45] And then I like to use that project to create the instructions. Right. Of note, you could create the instructions just in general chatgpt, like in the main chatgpt windows. Um, but this is my preferred approach to create the instructions inside of the project. It's a little bit easier for me. All right, so that is step three was create the new project, and that's going to be used for, for the specific task. Step four is have ChatGPT help you create instructions for the task. And then you're going to paste those instructions into the specific project.
[00:10:17] Literally just have ChatGPT walk you through it, tell it what you want it to do, what this folder, it's not folder what this project is for, and then ask it to create the instructions that you can just copy and paste into the instructions section.
[00:10:31] All right? Ask it to make instructions that will allow you to reliably get that desired outcome every time. This is where having those examples I spoke about earlier, the examples of the, the starting point, like the first draft and the desired perfect final outcome comes into play as it relates to these instructions.
[00:10:49] Your creativity is the limit here. Right? Uh, and you can make it. You could literally have these instructions say anything, right? Uh, you can make it so that just pasting in your first draft is enough to have it execute the task. Right. I keep saying first draft. This may not be a first draft. I don't know what the task is that you are looking to automate, but it's easy for me to use that as an example of like, hey, here's, here's the outline, right, that I'm pasting in, and I wanted to create a blog post from it. You can have it do that and you could have the steps that you need to do be as simple or as complex as you want. And when I say as simple as complex, I mean how much of actual instructions do you give it once you're pasting in that initial, um, piece of text, right? So for an example, here is one of them that I actually use is whenever I upload, whenever I upload text, your job is to go through it and add bold formatting well, where it will improve readability, highlight key ideas, and create excitement. This means all I have to do is paste my text into that form the little window, the prompt box. That's it. I don't have to say, hey, can you bold this? Or hey, and like, explain all the things. All I have to do is paste it in there and hit return and it will do it for me. And, um, you could also, I don't want to say program it, but give it instructions such that tasks have specific names to make it easier. Example from my own processes is if I type in Podcastify this in my chatgpt curious project.
[00:12:21] Podcastify, this means create show notes, and it knows that. So I say podcastify this, and then I paste all of the outline and it will turn it into show notes. If I say companion this and then I paste the show notes, it will generate the curious companion newsletter from that. And I can put both of those into the same prompt. I could say, can you please podcastify and companion this? And then I paste the, um, outline underneath it and hit enter and it does its thing. Right?
[00:12:50] You get to choose. Your creativity is the limit on what these instructions look like and do and what you have to do in order to get the output that you want. Um, just remember the whole goal here is having Chat GPT generate these instructions and then you can just copy them. You paste them into the instructions field in the project, and you're done with that step. Uh, fifth step, final step, is to test it and refine it. Try it out and see if you like the results. If you don't like the results, change the instructions again. Have ChatGPT help you generate the instructions. You can say, hey, this is the current instructions. This is what I'm getting. I don't like this. I'd like for it to look like this, or say this or do this, whatever, and then say, how should I change the instructions? What should it say instead? And it'll spit out new ones. And then you do that process all over again. All right? And that is the whole process, five steps. Um, one of the things that you may note if you do this and you use it is that over time, you may get or encounter what is called drift. And this is where the output is different than what it used to provide, right? Then initially.
[00:13:57] This can happen for a number of reasons, but most Most time it's because of a model update and also because, remember, LLMs are probabilistic models, not deterministic models. So that allow, in and of itself, allows for things to change overall time.
[00:14:11] So my suggestion here is take the time to update the instructions. If you start noticing, like, hey, these outputs aren't as good as it used to be, take the time to modify, update the instructions. It's fucking annoying, I know, but it's worth it, right? Do that as opposed to just being like, no, try again. No, try again. No, try again. Your best bet, and I'm saying this because this is what I used to do. I was like, uh, I'm just gonna, like, have it, redo it.
[00:14:34] Take the time to update the instructions.
[00:14:38] Right.
[00:14:39] Worth noting, right, Is how kind of thinking about it in terms of, or like, relating it, I should say, to training an intern.
[00:14:51] Right? So, uh, again, I was annoyed. I was like, I gotta update this. That is like, begrudgingly I did it. So, you know, don't be like me, just do it. Um, but part of me thinks about it in relation to training an actual human. Right? Y' all know my whole online business, business shtick. Not business. My online business shtick is keeping your team lean. I pay them well, but keep the team, team lean.
[00:15:17] AI really allows for this. Like, one of the reasons I'm so excited about AI is because you can create a team, right? Is it as good as humans in all the ways? No. But if you are at, you know, you can't afford to pay people.
[00:15:32] Listen, let's clone yourself and let's have the robots help you out to start out with. So to me, it's a bit easier to train the robot than train the human. I don't say that in, like, a pejorative way. I don't say it in a bad way about humans. But, like, the alternative to training, if you're looking to get help, is, would be to train a human. And you have to, like, record the videos, record them. And I say record the videos, meaning, like, record your processes.
[00:15:57] Have this person, you know, read all your work, find your voice, all these things. That takes time. And then you have to give them a bunch of feedback. That takes time. And if that's what you want to do, amazing. Uh, uh, by all means. But I do think that it's easier, faster to train this and less emotional to train this robot to do some of these tasks.
[00:16:19] So I think, uh, an addition there is that you can train it to do things how you do it to sound like you which is most. The most often use case. Right, the most common use case. But you could also train it to sound like somebody else or to do things in a way that somebody else would do it.
[00:16:39] This could be especially helpful if perhaps you're ghost writing for somebody and you want it to sound like their voice or your ghost working for someone and you're looking to have this really reflect that other person. Cool. That project can do it.
[00:16:51] This could be helpful if you're looking to create a thought partner and, and you want something that will always have an opposing view or will always have a certain type of view. Cool. That can be in the instructions for that project.
[00:17:02] Your own creativity, folks. That is the limit here. Your own creativity. So that in a nutshell, is how you use a project. Oh, my notes got all crazy here. That, in a nutshell is how you use a project for repetitive tasks. One of the things I said earlier though, if you remember, is that you could use ChatGPT to answer questions that your clients keep asking you the same question over and over again.
[00:17:23] The solution here would be to create a custom GPT. I am not going to dive into the nuances of that because I literally did an entire episode about it. That's episode 11. I will link that. You can check it out. But the long and the short of it is that if you want a solution for a repetitive task that is outward facing, right, meaning someone else can use this thing, then you're going to want to make a custom GPT and it's largely the same as creating a project, um, is very much the same, the same process. But I would highly encourage, if that is something that you're thinking about, check out episode 11 again. I will link it. It is definitely a bit more work. Um, but I created one for my Instagram intensive and the folks, they love it, they call it Mini Maestro. And uh, I'm not getting any of the questions that I used to have to answer a zillion times, nor am I getting the questions that I didn't really like answering.
[00:18:09] Uh, things like how to bat, not how to batch. Like, can you help me with a posting schedule? No, because I don't fucking like doing that. I don't make my own posting schedule. I don't want to help you. But chatgpt can do it and it can do it in my voice or with my values and in accordance to my, my suggestions for things. And to me that's really, really cool and really, really helpful. So if that just means you'd be like, oh, maybe Interesting. Check out episode 11.
[00:18:37] Last thing here. Before we go into how I use ChatGPT this week, I know that this is the Chat GPT Curious podcast, but I will say that Claude has released a feature called.
[00:18:47] Which in my very rudimentary understanding is basically like project instructions, except you don't need to create individual projects. It like, just knows when to use what based on what your input is. I haven't tried it, I don't use Claude, but I read a lot of stuff about AI in general, ChatGPT, all the things. And it's, It's a new one of their newest releases. And, um, I went back and forth actually this morning with ChatGPT. I was like, what is this? How is this different than instructions for projects? And kind of. It's basically the same, um, except for this, this kind of like, um, automatic choosing right. You don't have to like, wall these things off and be like, it's in this project. And in this project you can just like, it just knows when to use, uh, what it. It sounds to me kind of like a manual transmission versus automatic. Um, but if you use Claude, definitely give it a shot. Like, this is. This is why we use these things. Um, so figures worth mentioning for anyone who might be using that. So, last part today, how I use Chat GPT this week. So each week I include a section where I briefly discuss how I use Chat GPT that week. This week, I use Chat GPT to help me navigate the world of health insurance. So first off, Donald Trump and the whole administration about everything.
[00:20:04] Second, I am including this example to remind y' all that Chat GPT can search the World Wide Web, which again, in my honest opinion, makes their new browser Atlas, which I reviewed in last week's episode, ah, largely unnecessary. But no, you know, using ChatGPTs doesn't replace calling someone and talking to someone 101. But like, number one, that and two, if it's on the website, if the information is on the website somewhere, ChatGPT will find it. All that I cared about when I was looking at this was the ability to have telehealth I wanted. I have super low usage. I never go to the doctor. I am the doctor. I wanted the lowest premium. Uh, and I. Because I would also rather pay out of pocket for a quality provider. So I was like, hey, can you help me out? I'm gonna switch. I just got, uh, it's time to renew and it's going up to like 500 and, I don't know, something $541. I think a month. And I was like, I don't even use this thing. I don't even use it. Give me the lowest. And I'm currently. That's like, the lowest plan for that thing. And I was like, I don't even fucking use it. This. I hate this. I hate everything about it. So I was like, I'm gonna switch. Uh, and I just. Just popped into ChatGPT because I'd be hanging out with ChatGPT all the time. And that is how I used ChatGPT this week.
[00:21:18] If we zoom out, we back it up, we rewind it.
[00:21:22] That is how to use ChatGPT for repetitive tasks. Right? I gave you five steps, very heavily leaning on my favorite feature, which is projects. Let the robots do the work for you, folks. Let the robots do the work. Okay, that, my friends, is all for today. Hopefully you found this episode helpful. If you did consider sharing it with someone who, you know, is curious about ChatGPT and who perhaps could use some help with those repetitive tasks. Right. Uh, people that are bitching to you, like, I did the same thing over and over again. Let the robots do it. Don't forget. Also, folks, I have a companion newsletter, the Curious Companion, that drops every Thursday with these episodes that is basically the podcast episode in text format. So if you prefer to read or you just want a written record, join the newsletter fam. You can head to chat GPT curious.com uh, newsletter, or check out the link in the shows. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until we chat again next Thursday, stay curious.
