078: AI shortcuts for life admin

Life Admin Life Hacks

In this episode, we explore the AI tools Chat GPT and Google’s Bard to expedite your life admin and drop your mental load.

We talked about:

• the key differences between the tools
  • Chat GPT has been trained on data up until 2021and is better at responding to analysis queries
  • Bard is continually drawing information from the internet so it has the latest information and research
  • Bard generates multiple drafts of its response and ChatGPT lets you see alternatives if you thumbs down the response.
  • Bard can also read out its responses and you can click buttons to generate shorter, longer, simpler, more casual and more professional versions. You can also click through to Google search results for your query, which is a good way to fact check whatever Bard told you. You can use the mic to give it an audio prompt.
  • For both, you can click to copy the answer and paste it elsewhere, and you can share responses with others. They both store your previous chats so you can pick up where you left off.

Caveats

• they’re experiments and imperfect. they get things wrong. they hallucinate and make up stuff. fact check the answers if it's important.
• don’t type in sensitive, confidential info. they save every input they receive and might regurgitate it back to a stranger.
• human reviewers might scrutinise your conversations to improve quality.
  Meal planning prompts with ChatGPT and Bard
• give multiple criteria such as frequency, meal type, ingredients, categories, calorie count, nutrient macros or specific chefs or cooks
  • “Create a weekly dinner plan with a mix of comfort food favourites and lighter options to satisfy cravings while maintaining a healthy balance. Include Jamie Oliver, Yotam Ottolenghi, and Rachel Ray recipes
• tell it the format you prefer so you can use it readily
  • “ put it in a table format that I can paste into the Notes app in my phone”

AI prompts for life admin writing

• Use ChatGPT and Bard to draft effective letters, emails, messages
• give the tool enough context: who you are writing to, why, the outcome you are seeking
• suggest the tone: friendly, professional, formal, sincere/earnest, humorous, apologetic, sympathetic, inspirational, casual, in the style of a specific person
• ask it to draft 3 versions so you can pick and choose the best elements

AI prompts for travel

Use ChatGPT and Bard to get advice about:

• destinations and top attractions for time of year
• transport options : faster, cheaper, more direct
• currency exchange resources
• visa and passport requirements
• compare travel insurance policies
• packing lists for certain destination and activities at a specific time of year

Bard is useful here because it links to websites and shows images

AI prompts for gift giving

• Bard useful here as it includes links to websites and images
• “suggest some gifts that cost less than $70 for a man who is turning 53. he likes fishing, skiing, foraging, DIY, barbecuing and family time.

AI prompts for book, tv, film, podcast recommendations

• List titles you like and ask for similar suggestions
• Compile ‘best of’ lists of award winning titles
• Collate reading, watching and listening lists to dive deep on a topic

Be aware of hallucinations: ask the tools which sites can verify their responses and use those sites to fact check

RESOURCES

• Bard
• ChatGPT
• Pi