Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday you'll get actionable ChatGPT tips, real-world AI use cases, and clear breakdowns of what's going on so you can stay ahead.
Stop Repeating Yourself to ChatGPT
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Good morning, You probably use ChatGPT by opening a new conversation, explaining what you need, adding context, and correcting the response until it gets closer to what you wanted. But if you repeat the same instructions every week, you are wasting time. A custom GPT lets you create a specialized version of ChatGPT with its own instructions, knowledge, and capabilities. Instead of teaching AI how to help you every time you open a chat, you can build an assistant that already understands its job. Today, you’re going to learn about custom GPTs. Click here to watch my new YouTube video on how it's done. Cogito ____ (coming soon):What's Going on:A custom GPT is essentially ChatGPT configured for a specific purpose. You can give it permanent instructions like:
You can also provide reference files as knowledge and enable additional capabilities depending on what your GPT needs to accomplish. OpenAI’s official GPT editor lets you configure and test these behaviors before putting your GPT to work. Watch here if you want to see it happen.
Why it matters to you:Ask yourself this question: “What task do I repeatedly explain to ChatGPT?” If, for example, you regularly ask ChatGPT to rewrite emails in your style, your GPT can already know your preferences. You can upload previous emails as examples, give it explicit instructions (like never use emojis or EM dashes), and give it a signature to send at the end of every email. The advantage is consistency. You'll spend less time rebuilding context and more time actually using the output. Prompt of the Day:I want to create a custom GPT that helps me with [TASK]. Ask me questions about my workflow, desired outputs, rules, examples, and common mistakes. Then create detailed instructions I can paste into my custom GPT so it performs this task consistently. Do not write the instructions until you understand exactly how I want the GPT to work. Save Time/Money:Don't start by building a complicated assistant with ten different responsibilities. Pick one task you perform repeatedly and estimate how much time it takes each week. Build your first GPT around one repeatable workflow, give it clear instructions and examples, then test it against real tasks. Once it performs reliably, move to the next workflow. You'll get more value from three focused GPTs than one confusing GPT trying to do everything. Newsletter Rec:If you like this email, check out TLDR AI. It's a great way to continue learning with AI in 5 minutes. They post interesting AI updates and breakthroughs in a free daily email. They're a great compliment to The Cogito Brief!
Don’t finish today’s newsletter and tell yourself you’ll build a custom GPT later. Pick one repetitive task you do with ChatGPT and build one today. If you want to see exactly how GPTs work before creating your own, watch my beginner-friendly YouTube tutorial here. I’ll show you where to find GPTs, how they work, and why they can make ChatGPT much more useful. In an upcoming video, I’ll build a custom GPT from scratch so you can follow along step by step. Zack |
The Cogito Brief
Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday you'll get actionable ChatGPT tips, real-world AI use cases, and clear breakdowns of what's going on so you can stay ahead.
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