3 Ways I’ve Been Using ChatGPT Lately

I’m waiting for some potato and bacon soup I’m making to come to a simmer, so this will be quick. 🙂

I wanted to share a few ways I’ve been using ChatGPT lately! I’ve suddenly been leaning more into the voice-to-text feature (after never really using that feature before), and I have to say, it’s been pretty great.

1. Dictating what’s in my fridge and pantry

When meal planning, I used to wander around the kitchen jotting down ingredients I needed to use up from the fridge or pantry.

Lately, I’ve just been turning on voice dictation and rattling off everything I have: “Fresh parmesan. Salami. Two zucchini. Half a bag of carrots. Spinach. Leftover hot dog buns…”

2 seconds later, Chat spits out a nice, organized list for me! I can print it, use it to help meal plan, OR if I want, it will even suggest meal ideas using the things I have.

So much faster than writing everything down.

2. Keeping a work log

We recently had our annual performance reviews at my job in August. If you have to do those, you know that it’s HARD to remember an entire year’s worth of accomplishments. I spent way too long scrolling back through documents and my calendar and files to capture everything.

I’ve also been feeling like my workload has expanded quite a bit, especially with all the little “invisible” tasks that fill my days. Coordinating projects, following up on action items, troubleshooting, organizing systems, analyzing data… all part of my job, things I have to do, but not necessarily things that really show up on a calendar or as a big “accomplishment”, even though they can take up soooooo much time (especially as I’m running more and more projects).

So I started keeping a running work log in ChatGPT.

At the end of each day, I spend a few minutes dictating what I worked on throughout the day, including all the random little tasks that otherwise get forgotten.

Chat turns my rambling into a clean bullet-point summary. At the end of the week, it also gives me a recap with observations, accomplishments, and even a section called “To Highlight in Performance Eval.” Haha.

I save the summaries in my personal OneNote, and now I have an ongoing record of everything I’m working on. I feel like I now have a strong arsenal of evidence if I ever need to prove that my plate is too full, and hopefully this will make next year’s performance review much easier, too.

3. Adding things to Google Calendar

I just connected my Google Calendar yesterday, and this one might be my favorite.

I keep my work meetings in my work Outlook but also always add basic placeholders to my personal Google Calendar so I can see everything in one place. (Google Calendar = my master calendar, i.e. what I reference when making a dentist appt, etc.)

Previously, I added my work meetings to Google Cal manually (I cannot connect work Outlook to Google). This morning, I dictated an entire 2 months’ worth of meetings to ChatGPT in about 30 seconds, and it added all of the entries to Google Cal in another 30 seconds.

AMAZING.

I’m not looking to have AI run my life- and I don’t want AI like, reading my emails for me or deciding what I do, but if it can eliminate tedious little tasks like this? Yes please.

Anyway, those are three ways I’ve been experimenting with ChatGPT lately! 🙂

P.S. This is not sponsored by Chat GPT, lol, and I am perpetually confused if I’m supposed be embracing AI or rejecting AI, but here we are.

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for my potato soup that is almost done now. Yummy.

P.P.S. It rained all day so the new roof install got cancelled… boo. Hopefully tomorrow, they say.