21 Hacks 99% ChatGPT Users Don't Know

Key Concepts

• Prompt Engineering: The art and science of crafting effective prompts to elicit desired responses from AI models like ChatGPT.
• OpenAI Prompt Packs: Pre-designed custom prompts developed by OpenAI for various professional roles.
• Model Selection/Trigger Words: Techniques to influence ChatGPT's processing depth and thoroughness, especially on the free plan.
• Conversation Recall: The ability of ChatGPT to search and retrieve information from previous chats.
• Projects: A feature for organizing chats into categories, uploading reference files, and setting custom instructions.
• Custom Instructions: User-defined rules and preferences that guide ChatGPT's responses.
• Canvas Mode: A specialized editing environment within ChatGPT for text generation and manipulation.
• App Connectors: Integrations that allow ChatGPT to interact with other applications like Canva.
• GPTs (Custom GPTs): User-created AI agents tailored for specific tasks or behaviors (paid feature for creation, free for usage).
• Data Analysis: ChatGPT's capability to analyze datasets and generate visualizations (limited on the free plan).
• Voice Mode & Real-time Vision: Interactive modes for conversational AI and visual input.

Advanced ChatGPT Usage Strategies

This guide outlines advanced techniques to significantly enhance the utility of ChatGPT beyond basic question-answering, applicable to both free and paid plans.

1. Leveraging OpenAI Prompt Packs

A fundamental yet often overlooked resource for improving prompt quality is OpenAI's Prompt Packs. These are pre-built custom prompts designed by OpenAI for specific professional domains, including sales, customer success, engineering, IT, government, finance, and marketing.

• Structure: Within each pack, prompts are further categorized. For example, the "Sales" pack includes subcategories like "Outreach and Communication," "Sales Strategy and Planning," and "Competitive Intelligence and Enablement."
• Implementation: Users can find relevant prompts, click "Try it in ChatGPT," which loads the prompt with placeholders (indicated by brackets) for custom information. This simplifies the process of generating effective prompts for specific tasks.
• Recommendation: Users are encouraged to find and save prompts that align with their needs for future use.

2. Optimizing Model Response with Trigger Words (Free Plan Focus)

The choice of model significantly impacts response quality. While paid users have explicit model selection options, free users rely on "auto mode," which can sometimes misinterpret prompt complexity.

• Trigger Words: To ensure ChatGPT dedicates more processing power to a query, specific trigger words can be used. These include phrases like "think deeply," "be extremely thorough," and "double check your work."
• Mechanism: These trigger words are designed to reroute the model to a more intensive "thinking" mode, ensuring a more considered and accurate response.
• Paid Plan Note: While paid users can manually select thinking modes, these trigger words can still influence the model to engage in deeper processing when necessary.

3. Utilizing Conversation Recall

ChatGPT offers a powerful, albeit infrequently used, feature to recall information from past conversations.

• Functionality: Within any active chat, users can ask ChatGPT to retrieve details from a previous, potentially unfindable, chat.
• Benefit: This acts as a significant time-saver for retrieving specific information without needing to scroll through extensive chat histories.

4. Mastering the "Projects" Feature

The "Projects" feature, now available on the free plan, is highlighted as a "game-changer" for organizing and contextualizing ChatGPT interactions.

• Organization: Projects allow users to create distinct folders for different categories (e.g., fitness, finance, business), preventing chat history from becoming overwhelming.
• Reference Files: Users can upload reference files (e.g., previous scripts, SOPs, portfolio history) to provide context for all chats within a project. This allows ChatGPT to understand specific styles, procedures, or data.
• Memory Settings: Projects can be configured to reference the entire chat history or remain self-contained within the project, ensuring consistent context. The speaker uses projects for approximately 90% of their chats.
• Custom Instructions within Projects: This is a key aspect. Users can define project-specific instructions for ChatGPT's behavior, response style, and even set up "mini automations." This is preferred over account-level custom instructions, which apply universally.
  • Example (Writing Project): Instructions can detail writing style and include a list of "band words" that ChatGPT tends to use excessively.
  • Example (Business Project): To gather context for custom instructions, users can ask ChatGPT to generate a series of questions about their business. Answering these questions provides the necessary context to be included in the custom instructions, which are then applied to all future chats within that project.

5. HubSpot's "ChatGPT at Work" Resource Bundle

HubSpot offers a free bundle of five PDFs designed to help users leverage ChatGPT in their professional lives.

• Content: The bundle includes "Supercharge Your Workday with Chat GPT," which details applications in sales, marketing, project management, decision-making, time management, and organization.
• Practicality: It provides step-by-step guidance and a list of "100 ways to try ChatGPT today" with sample prompts.
• Sponsorship: This resource is provided courtesy of HubSpot.

6. Utilizing Canvas Mode for Enhanced Editing and Creation

Canvas mode offers a specialized environment for working with generated text and code.

• Access: Activated by asking ChatGPT to "open it up in Canvas" or via a dropdown menu.
• Functionality:
  • Editing: Generates text in a document format with the prompt box on the side, allowing for direct edits and iterative changes.
  • Section Prompting: Users can highlight specific sections and prompt for targeted modifications (e.g., "convert this into a table").
  • Quick Options: Pre-set buttons for common adjustments like adding emojis, polishing text, changing reading level, or adjusting length.
  • Download Options: Supports PDF, Microsoft Word, and Markdown formats, preserving formatting.
• Beyond Text: Canvas is also effective for coding and creating/editing mini-apps without prior coding knowledge.
  • Example (Workout Tracker): A simple prompt like "build me a workout tracker with all the important features I would want it to have" resulted in a functional app with exercise selection, set tracking, rest timers, an exercise library, and analytics. This app can be saved and used within a project.

7. Advanced File Formatting and Conversion

ChatGPT can format responses directly into downloadable file types, saving significant reformatting effort.

• Direct Formatting: Users can request outputs in formats like PDF, CSV, JSON, HTML, PowerPoint, SVG, and more, directly within a chat.
• File Conversion: ChatGPT can also process uploaded files and extract/convert information into different formats.
  • Example (PDF to Images): Upload a PDF and ask to "extract all the images in this PDF and provide them in a single downloadable file."
  • Example (PDF to CSV): Request to "find all the tables in this PDF and put them in a CSV I can download."
  • Example (PDF to Word): Ask to "convert this PDF into a Word document with the same headings."

8. Keyboard Shortcuts

Efficient use of keyboard shortcuts can streamline workflow.

• Key Shortcuts:
  • Command + Shift + O: Open a new chat.
  • Command + Shift + S: Open and close the sidebar.
• Discovery: Additional shortcuts can be found in the profile settings under "Help" > "Keyboard Shortcuts."

9. Prompting Techniques for Critical Evaluation and Context Gathering

Several prompting strategies can yield more insightful and tailored responses.

• Critical Review Trick: To overcome ChatGPT's tendency to be overly agreeable during critiques, frame the work as belonging to "someone else" or an "impersonal source" with "sincere doubts." This encourages ChatGPT to provide a more critical evaluation to be helpful.
• Asking Clarifying Questions: Instead of providing all context upfront, instruct ChatGPT to "ask me any clarifying questions you need before you make it." This prompts ChatGPT to identify the necessary information, leading to more tailored and comprehensive outputs.
  • Example: For a "30-day YouTube content strategy plan," asking clarifying questions will result in advice tailored to the user's specific needs, rather than generic suggestions.
• Saving Iterated Prompts: After iterating to a perfect result, users can ask ChatGPT to "Write me a prompt that would have created this final result on the first try that I can reuse for any new [context]." This generates a reusable, structured prompt for future use.

10. Voice Mode and Real-time Vision Applications

Voice mode offers interactive capabilities beyond text.

• Role-Playing: Excellent for practicing interviews (e.g., "interviewing for a job as an engineer at OpenAI"), role-playing difficult conversations, salary negotiations, customer service scenarios, debate practice, or language learning.
• Real-time Vision: Utilizes the device's camera to analyze the environment and provide guidance.
  • Example (Microphone Setup): Pointing a microphone at it, ChatGPT can advise on settings like "cardioid mode" for YouTube recordings, identifying the microphone type and its current setting.
• Other Uses: Can assist with software walkthroughs, setting up automations, or acting as a homework helper.

11. App Connectors and GPTs

These features extend ChatGPT's functionality through integrations and specialized AI agents.

• App Connectors (e.g., Canva): Enable ChatGPT to interact with other applications.
  • Example (Pitch Deck Creation): Selecting Canva as a connector and asking ChatGPT to "create a pitch deck for my business" generates copy and visuals that can be fully edited within Canva. This reduces friction from copy-pasting.
• GPTs (Custom GPTs):
  • Usage (Free Plan): While building custom GPTs requires a paid plan, users can access a vast store of pre-built GPTs for free, categorized by domain (education, lifestyle, programming, etc.).
  • Examples: "NADN assistant" for automation building, "Custom Instruction Generator" for transforming basic prompts into detailed custom instructions.
  • Creation (Paid Plan): Building custom GPTs involves natural language interaction to define their purpose, behavior, and knowledge base. They are ideal for specific, repeatable tasks.
  • Calling GPTs in Chat: GPTs can be invoked within existing chats using the "@" symbol, allowing for stacked functionality or one-off queries without leaving the current context.

12. Data Analysis Capabilities (Paid Feature)

ChatGPT offers powerful data analysis tools, though these are significantly limited on the free plan.

• Functionality: Users can upload datasets and ask ChatGPT to analyze them, providing insights and generating visualizations.
• Example: Uploading a dataset from Kaggle and requesting "five different useful visualizations of the data."
• Options: The tool provides multiple visualization types and options for understanding the data, with the specific outputs depending on the data type.

Conclusion

By implementing these advanced strategies, users can move beyond basic interactions and unlock the full potential of ChatGPT for enhanced productivity, creativity, and problem-solving across various personal and professional domains. The emphasis on prompt engineering, organizational features like Projects, specialized modes like Canvas, and the integration capabilities of App Connectors and GPTs are key to maximizing its value.