Transcription
There's one feature in ChatGPT that most people aren't using, but I think is so important that I'm making an entire video on it. I'm talking about projects.
People who watch this channel may already be using them, but not in all the ways I'm going to show you. And if you're not using them already, this will completely transform your experience using ChatGPT. And part of the reason I'm making this video now is because it used to be a paid-only feature, but it's now available even on the free plan.
First, a very basic explanation of what projects are for organization purposes. They're a folder where you can store multiple chats. That is already actually very useful. But beyond that, you can upload custom instructions for each project that will apply to every chat within it. You can also upload a knowledge base for it to work from, and that can be multiple files it will reference. These combined can be used to enhance the chatting experience, to reduce hallucinations, or even set up to function like little mini automations. And you can even easily create mini apps to live inside these projects, too.
So, we'll get to all that, but first, let's go over how to set one up. So, these are located over on the left panel, down underneath GPTs and above your chats. Click "New Project," and you can give it a name. And these defaults here are actually very useful and common ways to use these: Investing, Homework, Writing, Health, and Travel. I use a version of all of these myself. Like, I create a new project anytime I'm planning a trip. It's a big help. But for this first one, I'll choose "Writing" because that's something I personally use a lot, so I can show the resources I actually use. Also, I think a lot of people probably use ChatGPT for writing assistants in some form or another. In particular, I'll use this for a YouTube script writing assistant.
Then this gear has a very important setting to configure whether you want this to access memories from outside chats and vice versa, or "Project Only," where this is a self-contained folder that only references the chats and memories within itself. If you don't know, in a typical chat, you can ask about previous chats you've had before, and ChatGPT will be able to find that information and answer. It doesn't use your whole chat history as context all the time. That would be a huge waste of compute, but it can find things when you ask about them. It can do the same thing in projects if you leave this to the default. If you switch it off, it will only be able to reference the other chats within this project, not all the unrelated chats you've been having throughout your whole chat history. I personally like to keep most of my projects self-contained. Not all of them, you know, it depends on what you're doing. And this is really nice because without projects, I tended to have one long chat on a given topic. So, the context would always be there. But that gets really hard to go back through. With projects, I can start a new chat for each subtopic to keep it more organized while retaining the context.
I'll click "Create." And now I have this new project. Now, each chat has all the same tools as a standard chat. You can upload files, use deep research, create images, agent mode, study and learn, you can search the web, use the canvas, all the same features you're used to. I'll show these in context of some practical use cases in a minute.
There are two big differences of projects from a standard chat: the knowledge base and custom instructions. And you may not use those in every project. You may just want a better way to organize, or you may just want to keep the memory self-contained. Many of my projects are just for that purpose. But these two features can get really powerful for certain use cases beyond that.
So, first is this "Add Files" button, and this is different from the other "Add Photos and Files" button. These will go into your knowledge base. So, anything you drop in here becomes context the model can pull from only when you're inside that project. So, depending on your use case, that could be SOPs, checklists, sales playbook, roadmap, design specs, definitions, a brand kit, style guides, contracts, security policies. There are so many ways to use this, and it accepts a lot of different file types. But what I'm going to use in this first example is a couple samples of my previous scripts so it understands my writing style. So, I just drop those in. And two scripts should be plenty since they're pretty long.
Now, if you're on the free plan, your file upload limit is five. The Plus plan is 25, and the Pro is 40. But a hack if you want more than five files on the free plan is to combine multiple files into one. There is a limit on how large your files can be, but it's 2 million tokens, which is huge. So, for most uses, you can combine multiple files into one. I could have easily combined these scripts, or even 10 or 20 scripts into one if I wanted. And you don't need to load this up. Only keep what is relevant, but for some use cases, you might want a lot. Those two scripts are what I need. Then this knowledge base will always be here. And as you chat and interact, your project only becomes more useful over time because of the context from your chats.
Now, the second very important setting is up here under these three dots. "Edit Project" just lets you adjust the title, but we want this "Add Instructions." Now, these are just like the custom instructions that apply at the account level in ChatGPT, but these ones only apply to a given project. So, this is so much better. I've mentioned in previous videos that I stopped using custom instructions at the account level a long time ago. That's because I ask about all sorts of topics, and there's no instructions that I want to apply to every single chat. Instructions I want to apply to a health-related topic won't apply to writing a YouTube script. But in projects where it's a self-contained area for a specific topic, it works incredibly well and greatly improves the experience. And this is where it gets far beyond just adjusting the way it responds. You can even set up systems that are like mini automations. Like I have one for script writing short-form content. I just type in a topic. Then it kicks off a flow where it comes back with hook ideas. I just type a number to pick one. Then it kicks off the next step. Then we keep going like that. Just super fast and easy. Then it quickly ends up with a full script that I guided really simply. That's a different style than the custom instructions I'm creating for this example. I'll show that full process a little later in the video. It's really cool to be able to set up little automated processes like that.
But to create more in-depth automations and AI agents that really save you time and can complete entire processes autonomously, you'll need to use a larger platform designed for that. Make has been one of the go-to platforms for automations for a very long time. But ever since they added the ability to create AI agents on the platform, the capabilities have exploded, and you can create basically digital employees to accomplish tasks and achieve goals. It's automation that adapts. So, we have a lot of automations and agents across Futuripedia, which save a lot of time with research, repurposing content, and just making a lot of systems talk to each other on the back end, but a lot of those are pretty specialized. So, I'll show a more broad example I have. So, this is my personal assistant agent. I have all sorts of automations I've created for different processes, from basics like reading my calendar and emails, then more advanced things like researching topics, curating news stories, and creating content. These automations save time and streamline some of the more boring processes, but it gets annoying and sometimes confusing to run them all separately, each on different timers or triggers. So, I gave a Make AI agent access to every one of those. For a quick demo, I can ask it to add my meeting with Sam Altman to my calendar. It knows which tool to use, then creates the event on my calendar. Then, I saw an article about Google and quantum computing. Maybe I want to create some content around that. I ask it to use the content writer and just send the link. And I actually do all my interactions with my agent through Slack, since that's what I'm using already for other things. So, that's what this is all set up for. Over in Slack here, I have the summary, some additional information, and post ideas. Then it actually generated this image based on the article and has some additional images it found below that I could potentially use. And that's just a taste of it. I can't dive into everything it can do here, but an awesome way to show how these all interact is the grid feature they added. This is where it shows a clear view of all the connections. You can see how all the data flows and map the dependencies. That's really helpful, especially when it comes to like visual troubleshooting. But the most important part here is this is all simple to build. It's no-code, just a drag-and-drop visual interface. They have thousands of pre-built templates to work from and over 2,000 apps integrated already to interact with. Then you can integrate anything else with an API. They make it really easy to get started automating tasks and creating agents to do work for you. You can get one month free of the Pro plan, which includes 10,000 operations per month if you use the link in the description. And thank you to Make for sponsoring this video.
Now, back to these custom instructions. Since I'm creating this project for writing, I already have custom instructions I've created and adapted over time for this with the role and objective. I mentioned to use my uploaded scripts as context for my style. Then I also included instructions around tone and style. Then a list of banned words and phrases that I never want it to say. There's a lot of those that make ChatGPT's default writing style pretty annoying and obvious. So, I listed them out and add to that whenever a new one comes up, like "who actually says 'here's the kicker'?" But with these, it will understand my voice, my content, and be much more useful when I ask it to critique or draft something. These particular instructions I've developed over time, but there's a very simple way to help write these custom instructions for a lot of use cases. I'll show how I could do it that way instead.
Basically, I'll write out a very rough version of what I want. Some general things you'll want to include in this for any use case is things like the goal, context, response format, and tone, plus what's in the knowledge base, and any specifics on how to use that. So, in this case, I just have the role of YouTube script writer, a very simple description of the writing style, a quick explanation of what's in the knowledge base, and I mentioned that this is supposed to be a collaborative process that is very basic, so I want to beef that up.
So, a really great tool for this, since we're using ChatGPT specifically, is by using their own prompt enhancer. This is trained on all of their documentation and up-to-date best prompting practices within ChatGPT. And this can be used to enhance any types of prompts, not just these custom instructions. So, it's a very useful tool. To get here, you'll go to platform.openai.com. And if you've never used the OpenAI Playground, you'll need to set up your account. It is connected to your ChatGPT account, but it goes through the API, so it's built separately. So, you'll upload funds, then use them over time based on your usage. So, I think the minimum to upload is like $5. And if you're just messing around in here, you'll probably never need to add to that again. Like, you'll probably never even use a full dollar of that unless you're trying to develop something or creating automations and agents. I will show an alternative method to this in a few seconds as well that's completely free.
Once you have your account, click this dashboard. This is a testing environment that has a lot of useful tools to play with, but for this, we just need to stick to this chat tab. And right here is where I'll enter those simple instructions I have. And I'll send that, and it takes me to this screen. Then in a few seconds, it loads a much longer version of that in this box called "developer message." And looking through this, you can see it's already expanded on and improved it. It's a good idea to go through that and make sure that you want to keep everything it added and just delete what you don't. Then we can improve that even more by coming up to this button that says "Optimize." And then you have to click "Optimize" again down at the bottom. Now, it's going to reformat that again based on all the best practices of the current version of ChatGPT. And what's really cool is it adds these notes about what changes it made and why. Like right here, the reasoning behind this change: clear section headers such as "Role and Objective," "Instructions," and "Output Format." So, we're introduced to organize the content logically, improving readability, and enabling quick navigation. Then, it added this step to help with planning. Then, it has all these notes about everything it changed here. That's really helpful to know whether you should keep something or not, but also to learn how to prompt better. And again, review and edit this. Make sure it's doing everything you want it to. Then you can copy the whole thing and paste it into the custom instructions of your project.
Now, if you don't want to do it that way, one of the easiest alternatives is to come over to the "Explore" tab of Custom GPTs. Then search for "Custom Instructions." And the one at the top was created by Skillup AI, which is a part of Futuripedia. That's the name of our course platform where we have over 30 full courses on AI for business, marketing, and creativity. And SGE also runs the Skillup AI YouTube channel, but he made that super easy to use to transform basic prompts into detailed custom instructions. So, use that if you don't want to set up the OpenAI Playground account. Then take the enhanced instructions you get from there and paste them in.
Now, we are done with the custom instructions for this example, but I'll come back to these later to show that short-form creation mini-automation I mentioned earlier that uses a very different type of instructions than this. So, I have my script writing assistant project created. I have two scripts uploaded to the knowledge base to use as context to write in my style. Then I have my custom instructions to guide it on what I want it to do, inform it about the knowledge base and how to use it, guide it further on my style, and explain what will be done in this project and how we'll work together.
Now, anytime I want to work on a script, I can create a new chat, and it has all that information. So, I could say, "I'm writing a script about the projects feature in ChatGPT, showing how they can be used for organization, include the knowledge base, create custom instructions, even create mini apps and automations. Help me write an engaging intro." Then it comes back with an intro that says it's written in the same conversational, friendly tone as your reference scripts, something that hooks viewers right away while setting up the projects feature as the main focus. So, let's see. Tell me if this sounds like me. "If you've been using ChatGPT for a while, you've probably got conversations scattered everywhere. One for writing ideas, one for planning a trip, another buried somewhere with notes for a side project. It gets messy fast. But recently, ChatGPT added something that completely changes how you organize all of that. It's called projects." I'm not going to do the whole thing, but I would say that sounds just like me. And before projects, I would have to give it way more context than this every time I started a new chat. I'd have to use detailed prompt engineering and pasting context every time to guide the writing. But now, I never have to do that again because it's already been done once and will be reused for every new chat I start in here.
And like I mentioned before, all the existing ChatGPT features you're used to are all still usable in projects. Now, for writing, I normally will use Canvas. I could either select that from the dropdown, or I can even just say, "Open that up in Canvas." Now, when I click "Edit," I'm in the full Canvas. I can say, "Write the next part for a quick overview of all the features within projects that we'll be covering." Then it adds to the document in the Canvas. I can make changes to the document myself. I can ask for edits to the whole document, and it updates it all. Or I can highlight a specific section and can ask for edits specifically to that section. Canvas is amazing for writing collaboratively with ChatGPT, but it can be used for a lot of different things that I think a lot of people don't realize.
So, I'll jump into a different project and show a simple version. Then, I'll jump into another one and show a more advanced version. So, this is in my project for just random one-off health-related topics I ask about. So, I want to remember this information. I've selected Canvas and I'll just say, "Create an interactive quiz for this topic." That generates a bunch of code, and then when it's done, I can click "Preview." Then it's got this whole quiz created with a pretty nice-looking UI. Check the answers. Gives me a further explanation about it. Looks like I can even select different difficulties. Adjust the topic to mechanism, use, safety, evidence, and definitions. Then I can see what happens if I get one wrong. Yeah, it looks like it just has the explanation down at the bottom again. But that looks really good. That's a simple example with just a random chat I had the other day. And you can ask ChatGPT to just quiz you within a chat, but having a nice UI like this makes it a lot more enjoyable to answer those questions. So, that's pretty cool.
But Canvas can create little mini apps that are much more advanced than this. So, just with a new chat in that same folder, I'll say, "Build me a workout tracker." I do have a folder for fitness-related topics like workouts, training schedules, and all of that. So, to build this right within that project, having a workout tracker that could be convenient to be able to like easily copy and paste my workouts and progress into a new chat and ask questions about it. You could be, of course, far more specific with a prompt than what I asked for, but I'll just keep it simple and see what it comes back with. I'll check out the preview and see what it got. Let's start a new session. It's not quite there. So, I'll ask for an edit. And sometimes these will be just great on the first try, but you can just edit them through natural language until you have it how you want. So, this is the version back from just one simple edit. This looks much, much better. Looks like I can show a bunch of different default exercises. Let's say I'm doing chest, bench press. I could add a set. Looks like everything is working. I'll just add something really quick. End the session. Now it's got that in my history here. That looks great. Let's say I did another one. You can see how easy that was. And then I can leave and go to these other chats here. Then when I come back and preview that, looks like my history is still saved. That was just a random example off the top of my head. And of course, I could go through and refine this further to make it more useful. But even just as is, having this information directly within this project to where I can easily copy and paste it and ask about that information and my progress and things like that, I'm sure you can see how that could be useful. And hopefully, it gives you some ideas of little mini apps you could create inside a project that would be relevant to what you're doing. That is still a relatively simple example compared to what's possible to build in here.
Now, I want to show another very different way to use these: setting it up for a more automated system. I'll use this one that I briefly demoed earlier. It's for short-form content creation. In the knowledge base, I have this document with a list of hook templates. Then in the instructions, I have a step-by-step process listed out. So, step one is where I paste an article or concept. Then step two, it generates 16 different hooks based on the template I gave it. Once I select one, it gets refined. Then we pick a visual hook. Then we outline the content. There's a step that lists out eight options for engagement elements like curiosity gaps, unexpected twists, relatable analogies. Then we move on to the script structure, some closing statements, and a final review. In total, there are eight steps that are all done collaboratively.
So, I'll do a quick demo in practice. I'll use basically the same prompt I used in the script writing assistant just to show how different this is. I was generating all these different hook ideas. "Most people use less than 10% of ChatGPT's real capabilities, and projects might be the biggest feature they're missing. And what if ChatGPT could remember everything, organize your work, and even run automations for you all in one place? ChatGPT projects just turned ChatGPT into the ultimate personal assistant. Everyone thinks ChatGPT is just a chat box, but projects turn it into a full-blown productivity hub." There's 16 of these, but we'll just go with number one and hit enter. So, it refined that hook to make it a little better. Then, it has some visual hook ideas. I'll use this progress bar visual. So, now it gave me a suggested content outline for the rest of it. Let's go on to step five. This is for additional elements to weave in throughout the script. I'll use the "challenging assumptions" number five. Then I will just say that's good and move on to step seven. We'll do number six, "summary with a twist." Now it gives me the entire script for a final review. So, you can see how easy that was. Normally this would be more collaborative. I'd go back and forth and suggest things throughout this process. Just wanted to give a quick demo. I'm sure most people won't have a system exactly like this. It's just meant to trigger some ideas for what you might be able to do that suits your needs and goals.
And like I mentioned before, you of course have all the standard ChatGPT features in here, like creating an image. "Create an image for the visual anchor we decided on." And there it is. I could have that right up top as I'm saying it. Not bad. Then I could ask for edits to this new images for B-roll, and on and on in here.
I want to move on to a few more useful tips that I'll kind of go through quickly without going super deep and creating a whole project for each. If you're new to projects, you may have a lot of previous chats that you wish were in projects. That is not a problem. You can bring them into projects super easily. Just grab a chat and drag it into the folder you want. It's super easy. Or if you're on mobile, you need to click the three dots, and then there's a "Move to Projects" button.
Another one is if you have custom GPTs, a lot of people don't realize you don't have to open them up to use them. You can call them in any chat with the "@" sign. So, you can build out this structure of a project, then have the consistency of a GPT.
Another tip to create a knowledge base can be to use the deep research feature in ChatGPT. Like I say, I wanted some competitor analysis. I need to beat out all these other AI YouTubers. Usually asked a few follow-up questions. I'm just going to keep this basic. This is not something I'm actually using, but if you've never used deep research before, it's like a mini agentic model within ChatGPT that goes off for around like 10 minutes, and it will deeply research, find a bunch of different sources. It will think some more, adjust its approach, find additional sources on top of that. Sometimes it'll find like a hundred different sources. Then it will compile all of that research down into one mini literature review. Now, normally I would go through and edit and verify things in here. You know, it depends what you're using this for. Obviously, this one is a joke. I'm friends with a lot of the people on this list, but that can streamline a lot of research. Then you would just take this and add it into the knowledge base.
We've barely scratched the surface of use cases here. You can create projects and build in apps and automations for investing, budgeting, cooking, journaling, fitness, legal analysis, project management. Really are so many different ways you can use projects. Probably 80% of my chats are all within projects.
Now, I genuinely think this is one of the most useful features in ChatGPT. So, hopefully that gives you a ton of different ideas for how you can use these and optimize some of your processes and make them faster or better, whether that's in life, business, or creativity. And if you want to go deeper on learning AI on Futuripedia, we have a full course platform with over a thousand lessons across 30 AI courses. You'll find full learning paths on ChatGPT, prompt engineering, automation, custom GPTs, video generation, coding with AI, and a lot more. It's all included in one subscription. You can get a 7-day free trial using the link in the description. Or if you want to just do a full deep dive into every aspect of ChatGPT that is fully up-to-date, check out this video right here.