🔁 What do I do in ChatGPT now without even thinking?

The other morning I opened ChatGPT and typed my usual prompt before I'd finished my first cup of coffee. I didn't look it up. I didn't think about the wording. It was only afterward that I noticed I'd done it at all.

That's the funny thing about a habit. You never see it forming. You only notice it once it's already there.

By the end of this you'll:

Since June, these Thursday emails have covered a lot of ground. Read back in a row, though, most of it comes down to five habits. Here they are, with the line each one came from.

Count how many of those you now do without stopping to think. One is a real number. So is none.

Habits don't come from talent. They come from repetition.

People sometimes assume I must be naturally good with technology. I'm not, particularly.

Right after high school I joined the Air Force. They ran a stack of tests on everyone to work out where you'd be useful. After all of them, they still couldn't quite figure out what to do with me. My results kept pointing toward language school, which most likely meant learning Russian.

It turned out an office on base watched those test results. They'd call certain people over for an interview, to see whether they wanted to work there and whether they'd fit. I was one of the people they called.

After the interview, they told me to think it over and let them know. I did think it over. If I learned Russian inside out, what would I do with it once I got out? Computer programming sounded like a profession.

So I called and said yes, I wanted it. They said they'd see what they could do. Language school had far more openings than people to fill them, and they weren't sure they could get me out of it.

The day my orders came back, they were covered in red ink. Reassigned to computer programming.

Then I had to figure it out. Getting the job wasn't the hard part. Learning it was. That one phone call turned into forty-plus years of work.

The habits that carried me through those years didn't come from talent. They came from doing the same small things often enough that I stopped noticing I was doing them. That's all a habit is. The same is true of anything on that list above.

Look at the five again and pick the one that still takes effort. Just one.

This week, use it once on something ordinary. A short letter you need to understand. A recipe you want halved. A note you'd like to sound kinder.

That's the whole step. The first time feels deliberate. After a few times, you'll likely find yourself reaching for it without deciding to, the same way the others crept in.

If you use that one habit a few more times, it'll join the others. ChatGPT gets a little less like a tool you have to remember how to work, and a little more like something you just use.

If you don't, nothing's lost. Whatever you already do stays yours.

On Tuesday I shared what you told me you'd want from a free guide, and nobody picked ChatGPT prompts. That poll was only about a free guide, but it got me thinking about Thursdays. Some of you may want more of the basics. Some may be ready for more. And some may have had enough ChatGPT for a while.

So I'd rather ask than guess. One tap:

Whatever you pick helps me plan the next few months of Thursdays. It won't be the only thing I weigh, but it'll count.

If you feel like it, hit reply and send me one number: how many of those five habits you now do without thinking. Zero is a perfectly good answer. It just tells me where you're starting from.

Talk soon,
Bob

A short, no-pitch tip from my place – a two-minute way to quiet the clutter on your phone.