Here’s Everything I Use
ChatGPT For In My Biz
I can’t shut up about ChatGPT. I’m trying to get better, promise, but it’s just so USEFUL.
It’s user-friendly. It’s fast. It’s $20 bucks a month.
I use it every single day. Multiple times a day. Sometimes for hours, both in personal and professional life. Honestly, I feel like I get $20 worth of value every single day.
When I tell people how much I use it as a writer, I keep meeting the assumption that I’m using it to generate the copy.
But with everything I use it for — generating copy isn’t one. There’s a lot of hype on social media with creating blogs, web copy, social media posts, whatever, entirely with ChatGPT.
Honestly, I haven’t really ever seen ChatGPT generate quality copy. But what I have found it useful for are tasks that need lots of busywork, distilling, interpretation, or feedback.
I’m a copywriter and a stay-at-home mom of a one-year-old. Two afternoons a week, my daughter goes to play with my mom and I hit my business work. I’ve got no time to waste with these precious time slots. I need all the focus and acceleration I can get.
ChatGPT gave me exactly that. I feel like I can text Jarvis from Iron Man.
Let me tell you what it does for me.
How I Use ChatGPT Professionally
Knowledge gap procrastination
What’s a pillar page? Do I need to have special credentials if I want to write a CEU for a client? How can I help my client do a bank transfer to pay my Bank of America account from their Chase account?
I’ve put off so many little things in my life because of a looming question that feels like it’ll take a lot of work to answer. But not anymore.
I really enjoy using ChatGPT for complex questions I have that require some background. Or when I don’t know what I don’t know.
ChatGPT picks up on the context of what you’re trying to ask – basically, you don’t have to know how to ask the right question to get a really helpful answer.
Plus, it’s a dream using ChatGPT in real time on calls. There are so many unfamiliar acronyms and concepts a speaker has used that I’ve made my AI pal to explain on a secret tab.
Bulk data organization
I could cry tears of joy with how much time it saved me from cleaning up and organizing messy notes.
I’m talking things like turning a voice-dictated list that’s separated by commas into a bulleted list that’s capitalized appropriately.
Here’s an example. Imagine you’re voice dictating a bunch of subheading topics for a client's blog. It’s just a fragment sentences, separated by a comma each. But you want it turned into a bulleted list, where title case is applied and the subheading topics are organized from the most simple concept to the most complex concept.
ChatGPT will do that in an instant.
Editing & proofreading
Y’all. If you’re not using ChatGPT for instant proofreading and editing feedback, you’re really missing out.
I’m able to clean up my work and beautifully round out the copy at an absolute breakneck speed. I rarely run into writer's block anymore because of how fast ChatGPT helps me overcome snags. Like, How can I word this better? Is this matching the tone I’m going for? Am I missing anything? Now I can find out in an instant.
From the proofreading side, getting voice-dictated stuff cleaned up is an absolute breeze. I’m talking spelling, punctuation, syntax, grammar, capitalization, and formatting.
You can literally inject 2000 words into it and it’ll spit it back out – all corrected – within a few seconds.
And from an editing side? The instant feedback you can get is super useful and balanced. It’s like an on-demand second set of eyes.
I use it to make sure I’m:
Sticking with the client's brand and voice
Making sure I am appropriately supporting the CTA
Ensuring the flow of the whole piece makes sense
Making sure I’m not missing any topics or details based on the audience I’m writing to.
My most-used feature (when editing and proofreading) is simply re-wording sentences so they don’t sound like a mess. I feel so much less pressure to write things well the first time when I know I can instantly generate a simpler version.
Prioritization & time management
Remember those time slots I was telling you about?
Well, one of the worst things I'd let eat away my time was trying to figure out what to do first (or worse, task hopping). I'd waste so much work time just figuring out what I need to do next. Ideally, I would have sat down and hit the ground running.
I’ve been training ChatGPT to act as my scheduler, and it’s been such a mental sigh of relief. I didn’t realize how much of the stress I felt was because of prioritization decision fatigue. Getting to delegate prioritization has massively restored my energy. And – understandably – it’s really improved my focus.
Sometimes I use it for simply helping me prioritize my day or a project. I really enjoy prompting it to ask ME questions. That way I only have to deal with the mental load of responding, not remembering everything.
It’s also been helpful for breaking down tasks into actionable steps. I have a bad habit of giving myself a single “task” that is actually a massive cluster of little tasks. Then, of course, I get totally overwhelmed.
Sometimes I’ll have it make a simple schedule for me. Like distributing a certain number of tasks over a certain amount of days. For example, if I had a list of leads I wanted to reach out to, and goal or deadline, I’d just give ChatGPT the names and have it divide it between weekdays.
When I really need a lot of focus, I have it make an in-depth hourly schedule for my whole week. I have it analyze all the things I have to do and ask me about my priorities and time slots, then organize my schedule based on that.
Another great thing about using it for schedules and timelines? You can update it instantly. Just tell it what you need changed and it shifts everything around automatically.
Client Acquisition
You guys. Where has this been all my life?
I can explore leads and their hangouts so fast you wouldn’t believe. I never have to sit at my desk and wander around the internet trying to find clients anymore.
I get ChatGPT to do things like:
Generate lists of potential clients and industry leaders
Discover leads way faster on social media
Find the publications, podcasts, and channels my clients are hanging around
Create outreach schedules that increase my focus and reduce my overwhelm
Prepare for client interactions (like closing deals on the phone without proposals!)
I used to stick with not-so-great clients and lower pay because I was intimidated by the effort I thought it would take to find better ones.
But since I started using ChatGPT in March, I’ve closed multiple 5K projects no sweat.
What I would have given to have these tricks when I was new to a niche. Again, it’s fantastic for picking up what you need when you don’t know what you don’t know.
For example, now that I’m in the course creator niche, I’ve used ChatGPT to discover all kinds of different platforms that host courses. Now that I know about them, I can simply browse the courses on them to explore potential clients.
This hack has let me shift my thinking from How do I get clients coming in?? to How do I prioritize all these opportunities?
It makes me feel like I can turn on a client acquisition machine whenever I need it.
Branding
This has been so helpful as someone not quite ready to invest in paid branding help.
With branding, I’m talking about streamlining the style of your brand, like:
Fonts that go together
Brand colors that work together
Values and themes that I want to show up in the brand’s copy
Target audience
Images
Having ChatGPT suggest all those little details has made me feel so much more at ease.
What’s great too is that you can get it to act as an expert and give you suggestions to help you branding work better.
For example, I had some brand colors I’d been using and really liked – but I kept running into colors not showing up well when used on top of each other. ChatGPT suggested alternative and additional shades for my palette to make things work better together.
I also use it to give me feedback on whether the colors and font choices would reflect my brand voice well. And, of course, if something needed to be improved, I just got it to make some suggestions.
Coming up with image ideas
Here and there, I have opportunities to add an image – the header of a blog, little icons on my website. That kind of thing.
When I am coming up blank with what to photograph, what to look up for royalty-free images, and what to create on Canva, I just tell ChatGPT the context of what I need. It’s fantastic for suggesting options based on what I’m looking for and the medium I’m using.
If you’re ever struggling to think of poses for your photos – or stock images that would go with some text you wrote – ChatGPT’s got your back.
Comparing different software
This one is so helpful for software you’re really not familiar with. As freelancers, we’ve all run into wishing someone would just tell us what email platform, invoicing software, website hosting, whatever, you should use.
Now you can.
You can weed through blogs and listicles on Google… or you can get ChatGPT to both suggest and compare different options in one go.
For example, when I was struggling to figure out what email platform to use, my AI pal helped me narrow down options. It presented different options, but even beyond that, it explained the differences between them, and what might be a better fit based on what I was looking for.
Creating clauses for my contract
OK, I’m not a lawyer. ChatGPT is not a lawyer. But this nifty hack makes me sleep at night a whole lot better.
I do not speak legalese, and I know the dictionary used for legal stuff isn’t the same as what we commoners use. So when I have a concept I’d really like distilled into a contract clause, I make ChatGPT do it.
For example, I wanted to add a clause explaining that my client knows they need to be the one to get patient consent before providing me information from a patient or a testimonial. ChatGPT whipped up beautiful paragraph I could paste right into my contract.
Tech-support
This is like a sub-niche of knowledge gap procrastination. Tech problems stress me out to no end, mostly because I don’t have the greatest tech intuition. But now ChatGPT has become my tech intuition.
I’ll feed it the exact problem I’m having with the exact software, and all the things I’ve tried. It’ll give me a step-by-step of what I can try next. And if I need more clarification on a certain step, I just ask.
What I would’ve given to have had ChatGPT when I was setting up my Squarespace website for the first time. Or navigating Google Analytics the first time.
Brainstorming
I’m telling you, this hack is the ChatGPT gateway drug for writers.
You can’t think of headline ideas? Blog topics? Subtopics within the blog? You could fix that in less than a minute with our AI pal.
Here’s my favorite ways I get it to help with brainstorming:
Email topics/summaries
Blog topics/summaries
“What am I missing?” ideas
Things to talk about within a blog/website/copy
Where to go next with an opportunity
How I can streamline a process
That’s what I use ChatGPT for with business. But its helpfulness inevitably spill over into my personal life. Let me show you what that looks like!
How I Use ChatGPT In Personal Life
Recipes
I don’t usually get recipes from ChatGPT – but I get it to cut a recipe in half or thirds. You can get it to make substitutes for ingredients and suggest dinners based on what’s in your fridge. I’ll also have it explain techniques I don’t really understand and dishes I’m not familiar with.
For example, I recently checked out a dessert cookbook from the library. It had a cool recipe where you make cheesecake in an Instapot, but there were some tools and techniques that didn’t make any sense.
I took a picture of the page with that step, selected the text from the image, copied it, then fed it to ChatGPT. I told it to explain it to me like I was 10. Boom – I finally had clear directions.
Picking from a menu
I like to take a picture of the menu and use Apple's text-grabbing feature to copy-paste the whole thing into ChatGPT.
I’ve used it for when the menu is full of stuff I simply have no idea what it is (hello, pretentious LA food).
Or when I am overwhelmed with decisions and want someone to make a decision for me. In that case, I’ll just tell it what I’m in the mood for and ask for three suggestions.
Crafts
I use ChatGPT a ton for crafts – especially for techniques I’m not really familiar with.
It’s great for troubleshooting problems and explaining what steps to do first. If you have an end result in mind, it’s the perfect tool.
For example, I used it to predict the color a sweater would turn based on the dye color I used and the garment's original color. I even got it to give me a hex number to look up the shade online.
I also used it to help guide me through using charcoal to draw a picture of my daughter. I didn’t know what all the little numbers and letters on my pencils meant, but ChatGPT explained what they do and which steps to use them in.
Complex math
It’s great for the simple stuff (like cutting a recipe in half) but it’s also great for those giant word problems.
I’ll use it when I’m trying to calculate a purchase total when you add sales tax and discounts. I also use here and there for volume ratios, like when I’m making laundry soap or cookies in bulk.
Recently, I used it to determine the probability of certain goals for my next product launch.
Understanding terms & conditions
Now I just copy-paste the entire thing into ChatGPT and ask it to boil it down into non-legalese for me.
Plus, if you’re combing through a law you want to understand – ChatGPT can pick it right out.
I really like feeding it text from a terms & conditions document and asking about what the document says on a certain topic. For example, I like getting ChatGPT to explain what the text says in regards to privacy.
Basic explanations
I was a Google girl. If I had a question, I was going to Google it.
But if someone hasn’t created a concise blog that ranks well, finding my answer would get tough.
I use ChatGPT for comparisons or breakdowns of basic stuff that comes up in my life. Like when I’m at the store comparing meat and want to know the difference between carne piccata and carne asada.
My other favorite is using it to explain game rules.
I thought I was going to pass away listening to the rules of Clue during family game night. But, of course, ChatGPT told me (under the table) what to do as if I were five – and I finally learned how to play.
What are you waiting for?
You need to use ChatGPT more!
I’ve never been so excited to be in this tech age.
I feel like new inventions get two different moments of progress. The first is when the technology originally came out. Like Orville and Wilbur and their little plane they were flying at the dunes.
But the second revival is really where it’s at. It’s where stuff becomes usable to the average person even if they don’t understand the technology of how it works. Think flying commercially.
Before, humans could fly. Now, anyone can fly.
I feel like that’s what ChatGPT is doing for us.
You don’t have to be an expert, even if there’s a little bit of a learning curve. It's like not needing to know how an airplane works – you should still know how to buy a ticket and navigate the airport if you want to fly.
But it’s super easy to pick up. I think a lot of people are getting caught up in what technology CAN do. It's like trying to understand flying to your parents' house but hearing everyone talk about rockets going to the moon.
This AI technology becomes especially useful when people focus on small tasks it can help with, rather than its full potential. What little boring things could it do to take stuff off your plate?
Getting ChatGPT to clean up capitalization and punctuation isn’t the most sexy use of a supercomputer. But it makes a world of difference when you think about the time it takes to manually do it yourself.
What little things do you wish you could text a supercomputer for help with?
What little hang-ups in your day could you solve more quickly with a bit of insight, a quick calculation, or an automated function?
That’s exactly what ChatGPT is for. 😉