32 Essential ChatGPT Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Table of Contents

• Assigning Roles for More Creative Responses
• Formatting Outputs for Code, Tables, Lists
• Generating To-Do Lists from Paragraphs
• Organizing Chat Logs by Renaming Them
• Prompting Follow-Up Questions and Commands

Assigning Roles for Creative Responses

One powerful feature of ChatGPT is the ability to assign different personas or roles for it to take on when generating responses. By providing a specific role for ChatGPT to act as, the responses can become much more creative, varied, and engaging compared to simply prompting without a role.

For example, say you wanted ChatGPT to write a short birthday letter. A standard prompt might be: "Write a small birthday letter to my cousin Timmy". The response would likely be a plain, straightforward letter.

But by prefacing your prompt with a role assignment like "Act as a pirate", ChatGPT will stay in that pirate character for the entirety of the response. So that same prompt becomes: "Act as a pirate. Write a small birthday letter to my cousin Timmy". The birthday letter now generated is written from the perspective of a swashbuckling pirate, using appropriate vernacular and style.

Assigning roles opens up a wide range of possibilities for more fun, engaging interactions with ChatGPT. You can make it act as celebrities, fictional characters, professionals in different fields, and more. The key is clearly defining the persona before your main prompt.

Pirate Persona Example

As illustrated in the YouTube script, assigning ChatGPT the pirate persona results in a completely different tone and style for the generated birthday letter. Instead of starting with "Happy birthday, I hope this letter finds you..." the pirate version begins "Avast, it's a special day on the horizon..." and continues on with pirate-themed well wishes and sign-offs. So while the core content remains a birthday message, the persona assignment adds a layer of entertainment and engagement. This technique can be applied to nearly any genre of writing for enhanced creativity.

Formatting Outputs for Code, Tables, Lists

By default, ChatGPT provides responses in a simple text format. However, you can format your prompt to have ChatGPT output code, tables, bullet points, numbered lists, and more. This allows ChatGPT's responses to be much more usable and applied.

For example, say you want a neatly formatted table listing popular dog breeds. Instead of asking for just text, prompt ChatGPT: "Create a table of popular dog breeds sorted alphabetically and have a column for hostility, sorting them out into price". The response will be an actual table with the specifications laid out.

This technique works for code as well. If you need CSS code to modify a button style, paste the button code into your prompt, then say "Help me change the CSS of this button to be orange and blue". ChatGPT will provide properly formatted CSS code to achieve that styling.

Leveraging output formatting makes ChatGPT infinitely more handy. Remember it can structure responses as JSON, CSV, bulleted lists, numbered instructions, tables, and more.

Generating To-Do Lists from Paragraphs

ChatGPT has impressive summarization and task extraction abilities. Put them to use by having ChatGPT parse long passages of text to generate clean to-do lists.

For example, say a manager emails long-winded instructions filled with fluff and backstory before finally listing out tasks. Copy and paste that email into ChatGPT. Then prompt: "Generate a to-do list from this paragraph".

ChatGPT will analyze the context and pull only the tangible to-dos into a separate list. This is immensely valuable for parsing essential information out of long emails or passages overloaded with unnecessary details. Capturing only the critical tasks enables better productivity and clarity.

Organizing Chat Logs by Renaming Them

As the number of chat logs accumulates, keeping things neatly organized can become difficult. Luckily, ChatGPT has a simple built-in feature to rename logs for better sorting.

Look for the pencil icon next to any chat title to edit it. Delete the default name created by ChatGPT and replace it with your own customized title. For example, replace unimportant identifiers like "List of chores" with something more practical like "Family Chores January 25th 2023"

Establishing this habit ensures your ChatGPT history stays properly tagged. Identify logs by topic, date, people involved, or any convention that suits your needs. Well-titled chat logs are far easier to search through later.

Prompting Follow-Up Questions and Commands

The conversation with ChatGPT does not end after its initial response. You can prompt follow-up questions and commands to continue driving the dialogue and pull more insights from ChatGPT.

After an initial exchange, prompt clarifying questions to go deeper on concepts not fully clear. Or give follow-up commands like "Please expand on that analogy" or "Explain the final point in more depth". You can even provide additional contextual details missed from the first exchange.

In essence, treat ChatGPT as a real conversation partner. Follow-ups avoid dead-end interactions and lead to richer dialogue with more meaningful outcomes.

FAQ

Q: How do I upgrade to ChatGPT Plus?
A: You can upgrade to ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month to access priority access, advanced reasoning in ChatGPT4, plugins, web browsing, and more features.

Q: What are some limitations of ChatGPT?
A: Limitations include knowledge cutoff in September 2021, potential biases from training data, and sometimes generating non-factual or plagiarized content.