ChatGPT prompts can be a bit of an art form. There are entire documents and studies dedicated to how to make your AI friend respond with the absolute best answers to your queries.
However, these are often complicated (and somewhat time-consuming), involving a long list of requirements for the chatbot to achieve its best results. They also require you to take the time to learn the ins and outs of prompt engineering for true mastery.
Most of the time, a query to ChatGPT is a basic request, looking for a quick answer or some backup when you’re not sure where to start on a project.
I’ve now been using ChatGPT for years, and in that time, it's often the simplest prompts I return to most often. If you’re new to ChatGPT or just trying to learn some basic prompts to try out, here are five to get you started.
1. "Help me brainstorm"
If, like me, your brain is sometimes a mess of ideas, but you struggle to make them tangible, ChatGPT can be a great assist.
Simply use the prompt “I’m going to write down some ideas, help me brainstorm them into something tangible”.
This turns ChatGPT into a ‘person’ to bounce ideas off. After starting off with the prompt above, just write in all of the thoughts, opinions and beliefs you have on a subject, topic or idea.
ChatGPT can then help organize your collection of thoughts, returning a plan for what to do with them.
Equally, you can turn this into a back-and-forth conversation, asking ChatGPT for its opinion on what to do with these points.
This can work for everything from ideas you have for a party, through to plans for a PowerPoint.
2. "Explain like I’m five"
This is a classic prompt that has made its way around the internet way before ChatGPT even existed. The idea here is to have a concept explained in a simplified way… like you are five years old.
Simply ask ChatGPT “Explain [enter topic or idea] like I’m five.”
The age can be replaced with any age, or education level to edit the results to better suit what you are looking for. For example, asking ChatGPT to explain it like you are a graduate in that field will offer an in-depth description, assuming some knowledge, but falling short of blowing you away with complicated terminology.
If you’re really trying to wrap your head around a difficult concept, having it explained like you're five will feel a bit ridiculous at first. ChatGPT often tries to explain through stories intended for children, but it can be a really helpful tool for challenging subjects.
3. "Create a basic step-by-step guide"
ChatGPT can be a great tool for learning. While there are lots of different ways to prompt the chatbot around education, this is both one of the easiest and best methods.
Simply ask ChatGPT to “Create a basic step-by-step guide to [whatever you want to learn how to do]".
This is especially useful for easier tasks, but can also be used for more abstract concepts, especially if the chatbot is given more context. For example, it can be used to fix your form in the gym or help you to stop biting your nails.
I have found it most useful when you are trying to find a guide to something incredibly specific online that doesn’t seem to exist. This prompt has helped me learn how to make formulas on Excel, learn to tie knots, and more.
4. "Summarize this"
Sometimes, we just don’t have time to read through a long document or complicated news article. ChatGPT can be a useful assistant here, coming in to summarize information into an easy to read report.
You can add a block of text, or attach an image or link to information you want summarized and ask ChatGPT to “summarize this”.
If needed, add additional information such as “summarize this in 150 words or less” or “summarize this with a focus on what it means for the average person”.
For students, this can be a great way to get an overall sense of a research paper if you’re struggling to understand its overall statement.
5. "Check my writing"
Over the years, ChatGPT has seen huge improvements in its abilities when it comes to writing and understanding text.
This makes it a fantastic tool for checking grammar and the overall structure of your written work. Whether that's an essay, an online article or a poem you are writing.
Insert your work, and attach the prompt “Analyse this text for grammatical errors, sentence structure, or any notable problems you can see. Include suggestions of how to improve it.”
It can be helpful to include some context here, where needed, such as whether you are writing in US English or British English or if there is a particular style you are trying to achieve.
If you have any brutally simple ChatGPT prompts you swear by, let me know about them in the comments below.
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