OpenAI is constantly upgrading ChatGPT and adding new features. This includes making the models more friendly, responsive and quicker. You can use it for complex tasks like building an app or for everyday problems like balancing a budget.
Sometimes the biggest barrier to getting the most out of ChatGPT is coming up with a coherent prompt. While the AI is good at interpreting what you want, if you can define your requirements you’ll get a better overall response and more useful experience.
For this week's prompt jitsu column, I've gone back to basics and pulled together five prompts linked to everyday ideas, problems, or chores. I’ve tried to come up with a prompt for each one that can just be copied and pasted and easily adapted as needed.
If you''d rather use Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, MetaAI or Anthropic Claude these prompts should work on those models although Meta and Anthropic can't go online. You can see a list of alternatives to ChatGPT in our guide.
1. Career Development
The first of our prompts is designed to help identify different AI tools that can help your career growth and job prospects. We’re asking ChatGPT to go online and return 5 options based on your own specific information. Just replace elements in [] with your details.
The prompt: "Based on my current role as [your job title] in [your industry], go online for the latest information and suggest 5 AI tools or applications that could help advance my career. For each tool, explain how it could be used to improve my skills or productivity."
In my case I gave it my job as a marketing manager in e-commerce and it gave me tools like Jasper AI, Canva, ViSenze and Shopify Magic.
2. Personal Finance
I try to avoid anything related to AI and finance but here you are in control and should be wary about providing specific information. Give it a ballpark if you use real data and when providing expenses just be generic like car loan, electricity and broadband rather than companies.
The prompt: "Analyze my monthly budget and suggest AI-powered strategies to optimize my spending and saving. My monthly income is [amount], and my major expenses are [list top 3-5 expenses]."
An example of how you can phrase this without revealing specific data is like this: "Analyze my monthly budget and suggest AI-powered strategies to optimize my spending and saving. My monthly income is $5000, and my major expenses are rent ($1500), student loan payments ($500), groceries ($400), and transportation ($300)."
It gave me a budget breakdown and offered a range of strategies but remember, AI hallucinates so verify, double check and get expert advice on anything you do resulting from AI information.
3. Home Management
This next prompt explores how AI can improve home organization and efficiency. We’re giving it areas such as meal planning, cleaning and security — without specifics — and asking it to offer up suggestions to streamline those areas.
The prompt: "Design, outline and explain a system I can easily implement to streamline my home management tasks. Include solutions for [list 3-4 areas of home management you want to improve]."
In my case it suggested things like spending an hour a week planning a week's‹ worth of meals, creating lighting schedules for the house and spending 10-15 minutes every day on small cleaning tasks rather than a significant weekly bulk clean.
4. Personalized Health Plan
This prompt showcases how AI can be used to create a tailored health and wellness regimen. Again, as with the previous prompts minimize how much detail you give the AI, don’t include anything sensitive and double-check everything with a professional.
The prompt: "Create a personalized health and wellness plan using AI tools. My goals are [list 2-3 health goals], and my current lifestyle includes [brief description of diet and exercise habits]."
It suggested I get a fitness tracker and use health apps, a meal plan to reduce cholesterol and get to bed at a decent time to wake up after a full night's sleep. You can ask it to clarify any point or go into more detail as needed.
5. Language Learning
ChatGPT can be a great tutor if you get it started properly. It is also very good at languages and can painstakingly go through a word until you get it right — without ever getting annoyed. Here we’re asking it to improve language skills through a 60-day plan.
The prompt: "Design a 60-day plan to improve my [target language] skills using AI-powered tools and methods. My current level is [beginner/intermediate/advanced], and I can dedicate [X] hours per week to study."
It gave me a day-by-day breakdown focusing on the areas I mentioned and offered up a list of suitable AI-powered tools to help me improve even further such as Babbel and FluentU.
More from Tom's Guide
- How to use ChatGPT to help write your resume in 9 easy steps
- How to get started with ChatGPT free model
- ChatGPT can now access the whole internet — this is big
