Have you noticed a recent trend? More and better AI tools are becoming available. While AI (artificial intelligence) has been around for some time, the tools that came out recently are smarter than ever. DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, for instance, can generate relevant images based on your text prompts. And ChatGPT is surprisingly good at answering your questions on a wide range of topics.
This blog, Life Optimizer, is about personal effectiveness. So, I’d like to share with you my thoughts on how to maximize your personal effectiveness with AI tools.
But before we get into that, there is a question that I’d like to answer: is the emergence of AI tools a threat to humanity? Will they eliminate jobs and take over the world?
Well, I believe that the short answer is no. Of course, AI tools might threat the existence of some jobs. But that has always been the case since at least the Industrial Revolution. New technologies constantly emerged that required people to adapt. But the overall impact is good, and people become more productive over time. I believe that’s also the case with AI tools.
Instead of threatening you, I believe that AI tools can boost your personal effectiveness. It can help you become more productive than ever. But you need to know how to make the most out of these tools.
Without further ado, here are my four tips on how to maximize your personal effectiveness with AI tools.
1. Stay informed about what tools are available.
Before you can use a tool, you need to know that it exists. So, keep yourself informed about what AI tools are available.
Personally, I often learn about new tools from Hacker News, but you can also search for AI tools on YouTube. Of course, there are many other resources out there. Feel free to share your favorite resources in the comments!
2. Know the capabilities of each tool.
To make the most out of a tool, you need to know its capabilities. YouTube is a good resource for this because you can visually learn how people use the tool. For example, search for ChatGPT tips on YouTube and you will find useful videos to learn from.
Many of the recent tools require you to give them good prompts to get the best results. For that reason, I like to take notes of the good prompts that I’ve found.
3. Know the limitations of each tool.
While it’s important to know the capabilities of a tool, you also need to know its limitations. Otherwise, you could assume that you get the correct output from a tool while it’s incorrect.
For example, at the time of writing, ChatGPT may give you incorrect results for things that require calculations. I would then be careful not to use ChatGPT for such cases.
Again, I often find about these limitations from Hacker News. You can also try to search <tool name> limitations on Google or YouTube.
4. Think about how a tool can best fit your workflow.
Now that you know the capabilities and limitations of a tool, think about how you can best use the tool. Everyone’s needs are different, so think about how the tool can best meet your needs.
For example, a blogger could use ChatGPT to get title suggestions for a blog post and use DALL-E to generate a picture for the post.
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Keep in mind that AI technology is always progressing, and the possibilities keep expanding. So, keep refining your use of AI tools. Apply these four tips again and again, and you will become more effective over time.
