Mastering ChatGPT: Advanced techniques for workplace communication and productivity | Hiten Shah

0:00Hiten Shah:I want to learn how to use ChatGPT the right way. So you gave us one tip, which was be thoughtful about its memories. But what else? What are your tips? I usually won't start anything without a ton of context or with the intention of giving it context over time. Just show it what great looks like. It's like a human. If a human doesn't know what great looks like, they're not going to know what great looks like. You do have an example of something that you think is great, which is your boss's operating manual. My boss's name is Morgan, so it's what would Morgan do? So I'm going to create the project and then I'm going to add these files here.

0:29I want to pitch Morgan the craziest product idea I can think of. What is the best way to pitch it to him so we can go after it? Now it's like, this is what you want Morgan to say.

0:43Hiten Shah:Yeah, that sounds like him. This is a tip for all the ICs out there. Go and replicate your boss and prep for conversations with them.

0:56Hiten Shah:Welcome back to How I AI. I'm Claire Vo, product leader and AI obsessive here on a mission to help you build better with these new tools. Today, we have a great conversation with Hinton Shah, who's been building B2B SaaS for over 20 years. Not only is he a great founder and product thinker, but he is, by my estimation, a total ChatGPT power user. He's figured out how to load up ChatGPT projects with information about yourself and about your boss to figure out the best way to communicate with each other and get work done. Let's get to it. This episode is brought to you by Paragon, the integration infrastructure for AI SaaS companies.

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2:22Hiten Shah:to ingest data for RAG and provide their AI agents with thousands of integration actions. They've accelerated their integration development velocity by up to 50x, allowing their engineering teams to focus on core product features. Want to fast track your integration roadmap this year? Visit useparagon.com slash howiai to learn how. That's useparagon.com slash howiai. Thanks for being here. I am excited to talk about everybody's favorite friend, ChatGPT. Today is all about ChatGPT, right? Yep. How did you get to ChatGPT being your favorite? You know, it's really funny. I obviously started using ChatGPT first.

3:17It existed first. There's a bunch of experiments I did with the API and all that prior to ChatGPT itself, so with OpenAI's APIs. And then when it came out, started playing around with it. It really wasn't doing what I wanted in terms of my outputs that I was looking for. I think it was still helpful in a bunch of areas that we'll talk about today, but it wasn't quite getting there. So then I started using Cloud when it came out. and I was in the initial days of using this stuff I was actually way more clawed heavy by like more than 50 percent even though chat GPT came out first I had access I upgraded and all that and I think the turning point for me which I can't prove because I don't know the dates was when memory started working and that made it so that and and I'm a very like Like I don't try to talk to ChatGPT about everything.

4:08And if I'm going to talk to it about things that are like a little random, I'll actually start a temporary session.

4:13Hiten Shah:I want to learn how to use ChatGPT the right way. So you gave us one tip, which was be thoughtful about its memories. But what else? What are your tips? I'd love to see them. One of the biggest things here, we talked about memories, but temporary for things that you don't care for it to remember is really important. and then I'll archive chats because they don't count, so to speak, in the memories from last I checked. You can also unarchive them. At one point, I actually archived all my chats. And then I started pulling out the ones I liked. It was definitely a pain for a number of reasons because I have a lot of chats.

4:50I have like thousands and thousands. That's why we're not going into me chat UPT today. I have a blank one with the$200 a month plan or whatever, which was also a game changer once chat gpt introduced that plan it definitely changed a lot of things for me in terms of my usage i still get limits with claude i barely get limits to chat gpt although i use projects a lot so i definitely hit a decent amount of limits but claude's limits were also another very like brutal thing for for when you're trying to use it and trying to get something out of it especially when you need it now i think my next point is something everybody knows.

5:25And that's that context is everything. So for example, I don't have it shared here, but I have a project to make projects. I have a project to make deep research prompts.

5:39Hiten Shah:Well, this is some of the feedback that we've consistently gotten from guests, which is you can try to improve your output or you can try to improve your input. And everybody says improve your input and the output will come. And so they really recommend, which I think you're going to show us, is how do you front load the time to make sure your prompts make sense, that your projects are set up accurately, that your GPTs are well structured. If you can do that, then you're going to get that consistent, high quality outcome. So what are those kind of go-to practices that you think everybody should do as they're building these things?

6:14Yeah. You know, if you don't love frameworks, then you need to start loving frameworks. Um, I love frameworks and I don't mean that in the, Oh, seeking wisdom, Warren Buffett's mental models and frameworks, although I kind of do, but those are more like a bunch of tools. I think the strategy is if I'm trying to get something done, can I find something that's good enough or great that already works for other people and that someone's already shared? Oftentimes the models already know the framework. So now you're just trying to like tease them into the right spot or give them the framework itself.

6:51And then it sort of gets even more contextual about it. And I've just noticed this over and over again. So I usually won't start anything without a ton of context or with the intention of giving it context over time. Because I don't want to say that like I won't just do a one sentence prompt. Yeah, I do that all the time. But I don't expect that one sentence prompt to just magically work. I actually will even oftentimes be like, what context do you need? This is what my goal is. Or, and another one that like, I don't see enough people doing is taking great outputs, whether it's from AI or not from AI and using that to help AI codify that kind of output and it lets you build more outputs like that.

7:31That's probably one of the magical ones that I found, which is just show it what great looks like. It's like a human. If a human doesn't know what great looks like, they don't have to know what great looks like. So then you're just getting, in some ways, feedback hell, so to speak, of going back and forth until they get it or until you put something together. But typically, as a human, if you give them an example and say, hey, this is the thing I'd like from you, they can do a pretty good job of filling in the blanks, so to speak. I think AI can do a better job.

7:59Hiten Shah:So you do have an example of something that you think is great, which is your boss's operating manual. So could we use that as an example to get into exactly how you might do this? Yeah, we'll create the whole thing. So I would first create a project and my boss's name is Morgan. So it's what would Morgan do or what would Morgan say? So it's WWMD. So I'm going to create the project and then I'm going to add these files here. And so he has an operating manual. Really great human being built this out, sent it over when he first joined the company and became my boss. And then I've been sending this to everyone.

8:38And now everyone's already seen it. And new people that join because someone else is sending it to them. Great. So that's his manual. And for anyone that doesn't know, these are things that oftentimes, you know, it used to be a bigger thing back in the day, I think, where people would create their operating manuals. So you knew how to work with them. Now there's some other tactics and stuff that are actually part of other projects that we can talk about. Then he also tends to share a few different sort of document, not documents, but like articles he likes. And so there's one he shared called job is communication.

9:06I'm sure it's out there somewhere in the world. if it's not whatever so I would put those two things in and that's the project files right then I would add instructions so I'm gonna open a new chat and be like I actually would do exactly this I would add this add these two in here so this is a chat I'm gonna keep stick to what I

9:24Hiten Shah:what I know which is 4.0 yeah yeah yeah classic yeah yeah I'm a I'm very classic on that so I'll do that I'll pick 4.0 I really like 4.0 but all of them tend to work 4.0 is just faster and gets me what I want quicker. And so here I'll say, I'm, I'm creating project with these documents, and I want to be able to converse with it with the project and simulate type of feedback or advice that my boss would give me. Can you create instructions for that project, knowing that I'll be using these files in the project. I love that you corrected your typo because I just roll right through it. That was very polite of you.

10:13It's funny, like the way I type is always correcting anyway. So it wasn't for chat DPT's sake because, you know, yeah. So yeah, but that's great. So, okay. So here it already gives me the objective. Fine. Boss is Morgan. Great. uh system configuration personal okay okay interesting it has not given me the actual instructions right yeah so i'm like okay where are the actual instructions so i'm gonna go and this this is like in another doc in there which i call ai shaping because you're basically trying to shape it to get at what you want so this is a classic example of i could paste all this crap in there so to speak but and it says project setup but it doesn't feel right so it's like

10:58Hiten Shah:can you give me the specific instructions that I can use in the project so I can just paste those in there? So I find this a useful kind of like prompt, which is just tell it where it's going to go and maybe it'll give you a little bit better. Oh no, we got some. Oh, well, there's some instructions. Yeah. So usually what I've already done is, and this is another trick. I've done this in several chats. So when I find one where it actually did what I wanted, which we can argue, we'll probably just try this one or I can copy one over if this doesn't work from where I have it. But this is what I find most useful.

11:36If I can get a good output, I will always try to get it to codify the output, especially if it's one where I'm going to have to do this over and over again. So in this case, I said, hey, give me the instructions. I think just for shits and giggles, so to speak, I'm going to use these because I think they might be good enough. And I'm not trying to review it. And I also don't really care too much about this as long as it looks good enough, because I can always iterate and do things. And I also use the word simulate. I don't always use the word. In this case, I felt like, okay, let's try it like this.

12:08So there's just a lot of like, okay, we'll do it like that. But if this were really, really good, and I'm like, oh, crap, this is impressive. I'd make it codify it. And I'd turn it into I could turn it into a project or something. So one thing I would do if I love this is, hey, can you help me create a project so I can create these type of instructions in the future? And that's what's got me a very good system of projects helping me use.

12:30Hiten Shah:Project for projects. Project for projects. Yeah, whatever. So you're going to add the instructions right here. Yep, right here. So they're all in here. Cool. Let's say, and then now I'm just going after it. I want to pitch. On a pitch, Morgan, the craziest product idea I can think of for us. what is the best way to to pitch it to him so we can go after it now it's like this is what you want morgan oh yeah it's like thank you okay yeah that sounds like him yep and this part this is key so he's our vp of product and growth i report to him i'm a pm and this is this i know his manual this is the type of stuff he would go for so So now it's like very specific lead with the pressure, AI first, CRM, whatever, whatever crap.

13:20Right. So it basically gives me exactly what I should do when it comes to him. And it even says, what will you respect, et cetera. Oh, man.

13:30Hiten Shah:So we've had a lot of people on the pod or a couple of people who have explained how as a manager, you can replicate yourself. But this is a tip for all the ICs out there. go and replicate your boss and prep for conversations with them and you know it's funny i read this and i was thinking oh is this kind of generic and i was like some of that would work on me some of it wouldn't but i bet people that work with me could pluck a couple artifacts and um make a make a project or a gpt that really does uh-oh find out everything about me in a professional sense. There you go. So you're doing it. So what I would do if you were my boss is I would literally do this because I know there's enough about you out there.

14:16Now, in another kind of example we can give or it'll be in the doc, I do the same for myself. I call it like a personal OS. And it has my personality type, any of the personality tests, Myers-Briggs and everything. And then it helps me a lot. But if I know that about you, so Morgan is actually an Enneagram five, I'm an Enneagram nine. What I would actually do is feed that into the instructions in that as well, if I want to make it specific to me and our relationship. Because these personality tests help you, well, Enneagram in particular, helps you with relationships and how to sort of meet in the middle around communications and stuff like that.

14:54Hiten Shah:Yeah, that's actually a really great idea, because I do all this when I start as a new leader on a team, I do the work of gathering, you know has anybody in a disc or enneagram or any you know um myers-briggs we kind of do that we also have this questionnaire which i'm happy to share in the show notes which is 10 questions about me what am i motivated by how do i like to receive feedback how do i work all this stuff and actually do i have this repository in a google drive file of everything i know about the team that they've been told or that they've told us i saw and i haven't yet put it in a gpt and that's so smart because then I could say, you know, and sorry, sorry, Zach and Amanda, I can say, you know, Zach and Amanda are not seeing eye to eye on Project X.

15:37Hiten Shah:What would be an effective way, given what you know about them, to come to come together? So a really interesting idea. Oh, psychological warfare in the workplace, all for the greater all for the greater good empowered by open AI. So we'll let it do its thing. What I'm doing is I'm doing research on you. And I said to get stuff in the professional sense or whatever. Sometimes I'll even include, hey, she's blah, blah, blah at this place. That way it doesn't get the wrong person. So it might, but we'll see. I don't think there's too many Claire Vos, but maybe there are. So we should be good. And then, yeah, so we'll see what happens there.

16:19We can continue with whatever else.

16:21Hiten Shah:Great. So I love, you know, you showed this about someone else and you're doing deep research on me, which is always going to be thrilling to watch on the other side. But I want to go back to this thing that you said about your personal OS, the self-aware addition. How did you build that? Why did you build that? Who uses it? How are you adding to it? I'm so curious about this specific use case. So I have a bunch of these links. This one is the personal OS. So I use my project creator to create this, um, and it's basically a project description, what to use it for. And then these are the actual instructions, right?

16:59So what I would do is basically take this or take the instructions here and put them into a project. So we'll just go do that so that we can show, not tell. Right. And then it even says things like files to upload. And then even has like a kickoff prompt if you want to play around or whatever. so I will go here make a new project I don't need to put any files in there but I'll probably do that too but what you'll notice is up here it's like what are these things right so this is nine this is one three if you don't know human design you should know human design but I'm not you don't

17:35Hiten Shah:because it's on the woo woo side this is the third time human design has come up I live in San Francisco I don't know if this is an SF meme that's happening right now has come up in the last week so yes it is quite woo woo they'll send you a pdf for free but why not yeah i highly recommend um okay so i also have a voice and tone guide that was made for me a long time ago because i used to write a lot more and so uh i'll just put that in there just for shits and giggles so to speak although it probably isn't as relevant so here we are with this let's let's play some games So I'm going to take Morgan's manual and basically talk to it as if I just got this boss.

18:16Hiten Shah:Because this is kind of what I did. So this manual is from my boss, Morgan. I'm newly reporting to him and would love any and all advice on how best to work with him, considering my own personality, et cetera. By the way, he's an Enneagram type. So already it's like, I didn't have to do the work and it's already giving me the contrast here. I would have to do a bunch of Google searches to be like Enneagram type five and type nine relationship. And then I got to wait. Right. But this is kind of, what's interesting where it started mixing in the one, three from human design, which I love. And that's why I love giving it that context.

19:00Then there's like, here's our working style alignments, right? All this is true like i've done this before i know i know that this is all very accurate and then this is where things start getting interesting because it starts coming up with shit then that's why like the one sentence ones are great because it's like wait a check-in format huh so this is how i could give him a weekly update on whatever or this is how i could put our one-on-one doc and manage up and he's gonna love it because this is how he thinks right is this how how you what you would like do you think it's accurate yeah i've read his manual yeah and it's i know it by heart and this is this is like exactly it and one of the big ones for him and again everyone will know this if they know how to lead but that's a different story but if you're a good manager my opinion is that and so is morgan's is that you're just unblocking all day and and he said that in the manual my job is to unblock you so we can get shit done not not in those words those are my words so So yeah, this is perfect.

19:58This is exactly what he'd want. Because if there's a blocker, I know he's the first person I should hit up. If I can't solve it any other way, he will just solve it. And so that's cool. There's some really interesting things around conversations. He does ask you to defend things, but he never makes you feel like you're offended when he asks you to defend things. So he's always got a good way of doing it. So that's an interesting point there. This is kind of interesting. This is interesting, right? So this is in his doc.

20:25Hiten Shah:So it's quoting directly from the manual. Yeah. And that's why I make these projects. So if I didn't make it a project, which I've done before and done the same thing, I don't get this level of context coming back to me. I get more of like, oh, you put this in. I'm going to go fill in the blanks. I'm going to do something like that. Here I get these kind of references and all that kind of stuff that I just, it's just much harder to get that in a chat. Because I used to try this with a chat maybe before they had projects. I know they had, and cut some GPTs off another mess. I don't like getting into, but yeah.

20:57Hiten Shah:So one of the things that I noticed here that I want to call out is you said you like frameworks. And so what I saw in some of this prompting is here are personality type frameworks or guides that have been well-established or well-documented that LLMs probably know about. You also listed a set of interpersonal dynamic or workplace dynamic frameworks for conversations in that list and then loaded that up with an individual's context. And then you're able to, in a pretty structured way, address common workplace things, whether I'm going to have a hard conversation, I'm going to pitch something, I'm in conflict with someone.

21:36Hiten Shah:And I think that idea of mixing structured frameworks and personal context is really useful. And one of the things that I'm really empathetic towards new leaders are I get lots of new leaders in my organization. They're in the biggest job of their career. And And they always ask, can I get coaching? And I don't know if you, the coaches out there are really, you're really making money out there. Coaches are expensive. Good coaches are expensive. But a lot of times they're doing this work. They're doing 360s to gather information about you. They're applying frameworks to help you understand yourself and someone else.

22:08Hiten Shah:And then they're helping you get out of mental patterns or giving you other ways to look at problems in a structured way that allows you to move forward. And I think you just basically built like both a kind of coach for you to work with your boss, but I can imagine just a coach for yourself. So if you loaded this up with your own personality. So this works like this is a coach for me, right? Like, like I'm really mad right now about someone. Let's let's come up with a scenario. Let me make one up. someone trying to get control over one of the projects I'm working on because they are trying to lick the cookie as I've been told happens.