7 ways to use ChatGPT better

As a picture taker, i’m in a push-pull relationship with AI.

On one hand, I’m juiced by technology and learning new tools. On the other hand, I’m acutely aware of the impact AI is having on, the creative process and creative businesses alike. Especially in fields like photography where personal style, vision, and timing use to mean everything.

However, avoiding the technology altogether feels a little like hanging onto a floppy disk because it once worked. It’s nostalgic, but in reality, it can put you at a disadvantage as your main source of media storage, when the world around you is adopting new tools of engagement.

If you're curious but cautious too, here are a few simple AI tools that have made a real difference around the studio. They are just some practical ways to use the technology without letting it rewrite your creative voice or make you feel all Black- Mirror-kind-of-freaked-out.

Maybe AI is here to take over the creative process and all jobs writ large, but until it does I am going use SD cards and cloud delivery services when delivering your images. No Floppy’s here, ya know, what I’m saying?

7 AI Tips and Tricks I Was Overlooking That Might Be Helpful To You

(more on how i feel about the tools follows the tips).

1. Use Voice-to-Text to Speed Up Ideas
   Instead of typing in every prompt, try speaking into your AI app. It keeps your ideas flowing naturally, like talking to a collaborator, instead having to type out every word.

2. Set Custom Instructions to Protect Your Voice
   Most AI apps let you set preferences now. I tell mine to stay conversational, clear, and human, and you can set yours to your own voice and tone too.

3. Reuse Threads Like Live Notebooks
   You can treat AI conversations like working notebooks. When combine with voice-use, you enhance your ability to track your ideas and move them from concept to completion.

   I keep threads open when brainstorming ideas over time, then I take the ideas that resonate most and have them converted into actionable checklists and processes that turn the ideas into a tangible realities.

4. Summarize Articles Without Losing Hours
   Paste in long articles and ask for a quick summary.

   Better still: Have the voice application read the summary back to you while you're while walking from your Waymo to your desk. Then when you arrive at work you’ll have an AI generated summary fresh in your mind and a text transcript to further enhance the direction of your research.

5. Brainstorming, No Final Drafts
   I rarely use AI to "write" for me (you can and that’s cool too) but I often ask it to suggest 10 things I haven’t considered, a series of titles to consider. I ask it to read my writing for grammatical errors, clarity and have it rewrite sections that don’t quite fit. I ask it to explore the weaknesses in my ideas and to offer counter arguments I might be missing. I ask it to source relevant sources and summaries of why the sources are useful and which ones I should look into further.

   Currently, these features alone make the ROI on the monthly recurring fee the best business investment this basic user has made so far. (surely there’s an argument for it being the worst too)

6. Build Simple Systems and Refine
   Use AI to create checklists, templates, or rough project plans, then tweak them to fit your project, pace and voice.

   Remember you can prompt the platform to create a weeks worth of checklists to keep you on track with project completion. Drop those downloadable checklists into your phone, reminder applications or print and paste them to your forehead and now you’re a progress making machine.

   Better still: Use the voice application to read you your list back to you while you make your way out the door. You’ll be making moves before you even open your computer.

7. Batch Your Requests to Save Time
   Just in case you’ve been wondering, The place to bring your run-on sentences, many seemingly unrelated concepts and multiplicity of needs….. is the Chat! This kind of divergent thinking is welcome here. In fact, it thrives here! So spew on…

   Of course you can ask simple concise clean data-driven questions. Surely the Chat is a place for that too. In fact, it might be what your user needs demand.

   But for those, like me, who run many creative concepts at the same time. It’s nice to know that this type of tangental, more abstract thinking process has a valid use case for these tools too.

   Example Prompt: “Keeping in mind what you know about my business goals and my drafted blog posts, please draft three blog title ideas. Before drafting these ideas make sure that each post has relevant sources cited. Please review the all cited sources with associated posts and where necessary find better more relevant sources for me to consider before publishing.

   Please include relevant SEO information that should be imbedded in the blog post and demonstrate why the SEO is particularly relevant to my business objectives and blog post reach. Suggest edits in each blog post to enhance SEO by accurately integrating it in the post while keeping the content authentic to my brand, tone, mission and business vision. Also please provide a step-by-step Squarespace SEO integration map.

   Keeping in mind my tone and reach also create 2 social captions, one for LinkedIn and one for Instagram, Then based on the article titles and content create a step by step template so I can maintain this style of posting on a weekly basis. Thank you.”

   AI handles multitasking better than we sometimes realize and I encourage you to experience the profound ways these tools can enhance your daily work.

*please make sure to employ critical thinking skills when using these tools and please fact check information as needed for you particular use.