ChatGPT tutorial: An Overview of the UI and Key Concepts
This article assumes you have used ChatGPT before and have some basic understanding. I've not come across an official ChatGPT documentation so this is an effort to document what I have discovered so far.
While the ChatGPT user interface is very similar to most chat systems, there are some important concepts to be aware of to use it efficiently.
In this article:
- Working with multiple conversations
- How to start a new conversation?
- What does ChatGPT remember about the conversation?
- Why using different conversations?
- How to resume a previous conversation?
- How to rename a conversation?
- How to get rid of unnecessary conversations?
- Interacting with ChatGPT in a conversation
- How to navigate ChatGPT answers?
Working with multiple conversations
How to start a new conversation?
When you log into ChatGPT you will see this page.
- this is the homepage of ChatGPT. If you see this, you are about to start a new conversation with ChatGPT
- this is the prompt you can use to start the new conversation with ChatGPT.
- if you are in an active conversation with ChatGPT and want to start a new one, you can click this button
If you type something in the prompt and submit you're essentially starting a new conversation with ChatGPT. If instead you'd like to continue a previous conversation, please see the section "How to resume a previous conversation and its context"
What does ChatGPT remember about the conversation?
If you want to use ChatGTP efficiently this is something you want to understand and this is not obvious. When you interact with a human on a chat, you don't have to repeat yourself each time you say something: the human on the other end of the chat remembers the context of the conversation. The same way ChatGTP is able to remember what has been discussed (by you and by itself) as part of a conversation and this really helps making the conversation natural and interactive. But there are limitations that you should be aware of:
- ChatGPT can only accumulate a limited context (~3,000 words). See this for more information.
- ChatGPT remembers what was said in a given conversation but not across conversations. For example if you have 2 conversations with ChatGPT (conversation 1 and conversation 2) and you talked about a book in conversation 1, you'll be able to refer back to this book in conversation 1 but that context won't be available as part of conversation 2.
- The ChatGPT UI provides an history of the conversations, you can use it to restore a previous conversation and its associated context (more information here).
Why using different conversations?
Given the context ChatGTP accumulates within a conversation is limited in size and is not shared across different conversation you should consider creating different conversations with ChatGPT for different topics.
For example imagine you are in the middle of a conversation with ChatGTP about personal finances. You may want to continue this conversation at a later stage and have more questions on the topic. The context accumulated so far by ChatGPT will be useful for that. If now you start asking a bunch of questions on a completely unrelated topic, for exemple to get the summary of a book on time management, then you may reach the 3,000 words limit of the context and start loosing context about the personal finance conversation.
How to resume a previous conversation?
Each time you create a new conversation with ChatGPT an item is added in the top left section of the UI (item 1 on the screenshot below).
Based on your initial question in the new conversation ChatGPT will automatically assign a title to the conversation.
To load a previous conversation (and its context) you simply need to click on the item representing the conversation. This is very similar to traditional chat systems where you can switch between conversations with different users, except that here all conversations are with ChatGPT.
If you think this conversation could be useful later you may want to consider renaming previous conversations.
How to rename a conversation
To change the title of a conversation you can click on the edit icon next to the title of the active item (highlighted in red below):
If you have a long conversation with ChatGPT and you think you may want to come back to it later it can be useful to rename it with the key topic you were discussing. This will make it easier for your future self to find it.
How to get rid of unnecessary conversations
To keep the list of discussions with ChatGPT tidy you may want to rename important conversation and you may also want to get rid of old conversations you won't use again in the future. To do that you can either delete a single conversation or delete all of them at once.
To delete a conversation click on it in the top left panel and the click the bin icon (highlight in red below)
To delete all conversations you will find a "clear conversations" button in the left panel of the UI.
Click on it and confirm to delete all conversations.
Interacting with ChatGPT in a conversation
How to navigate ChatGPT answers?
Depending on the questions you ask ChatGPT may provide a list of items as an answer.
Here is an example.
Me: provide a list of the chapters of the book GTD (expand to see chatGTP answer)
ChatGPT Answer: "Getting Things Done" (GTD) is a productivity methodology developed by David Allen. The book "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" is structured into the following chapters:
- The GTD Paradigm
- Capture
- Clarify
- Organize
- Reflect
- Engage
Here is a brief summary of each chapter:
- The GTD Paradigm: This chapter introduces the key concepts of the GTD methodology, including the "mind like water" concept and the Five-Step Process for managing workflow.
- Capture: This chapter covers the importance of capturing everything that has your attention, including tasks, ideas, and notes. It discusses techniques for capturing information, such as using lists and tools like Evernote.
- Clarify: This chapter covers the process of clarifying and organizing the information you've captured, including defining the next action for each item and organizing items into appropriate lists or projects.
- Organize: This chapter covers the process of organizing your tasks and projects, including creating contexts and using reference materials.
- Reflect: This chapter covers the importance of regularly reviewing and reassessing your tasks and projects to ensure you are making progress and staying on track.
- Engage: This chapter covers the process of actually getting things done, including techniques for prioritizing and focusing on tasks, as well as tips for maintaining momentum and overcoming common productivity challenges.
We can now refer to the items ChatGTP provided by their number, for example:
Me: provide a summary of item 1 (expand to see chatGTP answer)
ChatGPT Answer: In chapter 1 of "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity," David Allen introduces the key concepts of the GTD methodology. The central idea of GTD is that a person's mind is like water, and when it is cluttered with too many tasks, ideas, and commitments, it becomes agitated and difficult to focus. The GTD paradigm is a system for managing the flow of work and commitments in a way that allows the mind to be clear and focused.
The Five-Step Process of GTD consists of the following steps:
- Capture: This step involves capturing everything that has your attention, including tasks, ideas, and notes.
- Clarify: This step involves clarifying and organizing the information you've captured, including defining the next action for each item and organizing items into appropriate lists or projects.
- Organize: This step involves organizing your tasks and projects, including creating contexts and using reference materials.
- Reflect: This step involves regularly reviewing and reassessing your tasks and projects to ensure you are making progress and staying on track.
- Engage: This step involves actually getting things done, including techniques for prioritizing and focusing on tasks, as well as tips for maintaining momentum and overcoming common productivity challenges.
The GTD paradigm is designed to help individuals manage the flow of work and commitments in a way that allows them to stay focused, productive, and in control. By following the Five-Step Process and using the tools and techniques outlined in the book, individuals can learn to effectively manage their time and achieve their goals.
You could then ask the same question for chapter 2 or you can also ask about the "next" chapter.
Me: provide a summary of the next chapter (expand to see chatGTP answer)
ChatGPT Answer:Chapter 2 of "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" covers the process of capturing everything that has your attention. This includes tasks, ideas, notes, and anything else that is vying for your attention. The idea behind capturing is to get everything out of your head and into a trusted system so you can free up mental space and reduce stress.
The book discusses several techniques for capturing information, including using lists, tools like Evernote, and setting up routines and triggers to help you remember to capture things as they come up. It also covers the importance of setting up a physical and digital filing system to store and organize your captured information.
Overall, the goal of capturing is to create a comprehensive inventory of everything that has your attention so you can better understand what needs to be done and when. By capturing everything in one place, you can better prioritize your tasks, focus on what's most important, and avoid feeling overwhelmed or stressed.
How to control the formatting of ChatGPT answers?
See this post where I explain how to summarise books.
Found this useful? Any suggestions?
If you have any comments or suggestions about this page please feel free to reach out to me at hi@olideh.com and I'll do my best to respond as quickly as possible.
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