It may seem like a click-bait title, but it’s not. The productivity gains I’ve seen incorporating ChatGPT into my workflow is 100x.

I use ChatGPT for research and writing, alongside 100 million other weekly users. If you don’t use it, go try it out right now. Seriously. Click the link above (not sponsored), get a free account, and start living in that space.

Because this is the future.

Working alongside AI and prompting it effectively to get what you want is a skill. And the sooner you learn that skill, the faster you can start using these tools to make content unique to you. Content that educates, or entertains, or inspires.

So, here are some tips on how to prompt AI to help you work smarter and faster - boosting your productivity in the process.

5 prompting rules for ChatGPT:

1. Always ask ChatGPT to ask you questions before starting.

This is cheat code for instantly better results. Almost every prompt I write includes instructions to ask me three questions before ChatGPT starts writing anything.

Often, the questions will revolve around tone, style, and any important information to include. Here’s an example from a conversation about rom-com movie plot ideas:

It’s not actually that different than talking to a human. The more context you can give, the better the result.

And by asking ChatGPT to ask YOU questions, you don’t have to think of everything in your prompt. That’s the power of a conversation - you’re forced to make decisions as someone else asks questions.

2. Always ask ChatGPT to search the web.

This is critical when doing any kind of research.

Just like human beings, the more information ChatGPT has, the better answers you’re going to get. So, always specify to look online for the most recent information.

Sometime it’ll do this automatically. There’s also a “search” button you can enable to force it to look online. Check it out at the bottom of this screenshot:

3. Always ask ChatGPT to fact check itself.

ChatGPT hallucinates. That means it sometimes gives answers that sound correct but are actually made up or wrong because it doesn’t have enough accurate info or context to work with.

One way to reduce hallucinations is to ask it to look online - that gives it more info to pull from to put together better answers.

Still, hallucinations happen. So when doing any research, always ask it to fact check its own response for accuracy, like I did here:

The model above is ChatGPT 4o (latest model) and it hallucinates for LESS than previous versions, but it still happens. So always fact check - both within ChatGPT and with a quick search to verify any critical info.

4. Use ChatGPT’s Canvas to collaborate on projects.

This is still in beta, but it’s one of ChatGPT’s coolest features - working together on documents. You can ask it to make suggestions, rewrite sections to make your writing more visual or exciting, or add entirely new sections.

In the example below, I asked it for suggestions to help make the opening of this article more visually engaging:

Note that ChatGPT loves to rewrite you. So you need to be clear that you are looking for suggestions, not to rewrite what you’ve written. I just want to see what ChatGPT would do, and then I can take or leave whatever I want.

This feature rocks because it solves one of the biggest problems with prompting: starting from scratch with every new prompt.

Instead, Canvas helps you iterate on what’s already there, allowing to keep what’s working, and change what’s not.

5. Ask ChatGPT to write prompts for other AIs.

This starts to get into my workflow for Runway (which I will explore in another article).

But basically, you can have ChatGPT write prompts for other AI’s (like Runway) - and ChatGPT is intuitively better at it than humans!

First, I had ChatGPT create an image for a (very) short film I’m making. Here’s that prompt:

Then, I asked ChatGPT to write a prompt using the best practices for Runway’s image-to-video Gen-3 Alpha program that creates movement where the astronaut is kicking through space. ChatGPT came up with this prompt:

“The camera follows a lone astronaut in a white spacesuit, illuminated by distant starlight, as they kick off their legs, propelling themselves gracefully through the vast, dark expanse of space. The scene is serene, with the astronaut's movements creating gentle ripples in the surrounding cosmic dust, all set against a backdrop of distant galaxies.”

I put that into Runway, along with the image and… boom:

I’ve tried writing prompts for Runway myself, but I always get better results when I have ChatGPT write it. Then, I can iterate on the prompt from there.

Just have fun.

It’s an incredible time to be a creative, so enjoy playing with this new tech. The more you get familiar with these tools, the better positioned you’ll be in the next 5 years to build leverage and earn your freedom.

But remember, it should be fun. You’re the creative and these are the new tools to unleash what’s inside your head.

Start now. And let me know if you found this useful. If so, I’ll do more articles like this.

-Thomas

P.S. It’s never too late to…

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