Imagine meeting a new person and not introducing yourself? How rude!
Be polite - introduce yourself. Who are you? What are the major things you’d like the other side to know?
You don’t have to say everything at once - instead, let’s do a speed dating round with ChatGPT.
You have 5-10 minutes to cover the basics about yourself.

Let’s go!

Missed the series kickoff? Read the introduction here.

❓Where do I start? 

For this special kind of speed dating - you start in your ChatGPT UI 😉
1️⃣Click on your profile picture and choose Customize ChatGPT.

2️⃣You will see a window like this:

The info you put here are preferences that apply across all your chats.
You can fill it however you want, carte blanche!
The primary point of today’s post was to introduce you to the existence of this setting, but if you want more tips and tricks - keep reading. ⬇️

❓How do I fill it out?

Nickname and what do you do? - hopefully you know those. 😅
✅Answer these:
“I am…"
→ example: a software engineer working on a blockchain related startup project.
“My goal is to ___ by ___ so that I can ___”
→ example: My goal is to grow as a software engineer by improving my coding skills, learning new frameworks, and contributing to open-source projects.
💡quick tip - write about your work (role, skill set, seniority, goals), we’ll cover non work things later.

What personality should ChatGPT have?
Personally, I keep this on Default but what you can do is ask yourself what kind of tasks do you want ChatGPT to help you with the most and what kind of personality is most fitting for that.
💡tip - you probably wouldn't choose a cynic personality for your emotional problems. 😉

What traits should ChatGPT have?
✅Answer these:
“I’d like ChatGPT to talk to me in a way that feels…”
→ example: friendly and casual/professional and to the point
“Most of the time, I want answers that are…”
→ example: max 5 bullet points with most important words bolded/step-by-step and detailed
“One thing I really don’t want ChatGPT to do is…”
→ example: give me long, unstructured answers/be too casual when I need serious help
💡tip - you can do conditional formatting: “if I’m asking about (this) answer in (this way)”
💡tip - you can define shortcuts that can be used in chats, use this for the things you find yourself repeatedly writing

Anything else ChatGPT should know about you?
Here feel free to mention anything from your life that’s non work related (keep it PG, it’s only your second date!).
For example if you are playing DnD and you are a bard, mention it here so ChatGPT is ready for your next session.

🎁Bonus
💡tip - sometimes you want a fresh start or to temporarily ignore previous cues, let me show you 2 ways to override what you defined in customization:
1️⃣Just tell chatGPT: “Ignore what I have defined in customization for this chat” OR
2️⃣Go to Customize ChatGPT and toggle off Enable for new chats (bottom of the window)

🌙Week 1 Conclusion:

🎉Bravo, you have successfully introduced yourself and told chatGPT how you prefer it to answer! The following hurdles should have been crossed:
✅It feels like you don’t get me at all — I’ve explained/told you this before, why do I have to repeat myself?
✅Whoa, that’s way too long, can you just give me the main point?
⬆️If the issues are not fully resolved, no worries - Episode 4 - “Let’s talk” is coming!
Just as you would tell your date if and when things change in your life, don’t forget to keep adjusting customizations AKA what ChatGPT knows about you.

Remember, customizations are just a starting point for what ChatGPT knows about you. It learns as you use it. If you are interested in what it learns, how it stores it, who sees it, memory management and how to customize all of it - that is coming in Episode 3 - “Privacy matters”.

Of course, dating is a two way street, so next week, we’ll get to know ChatGPT a bit better!

Until next week,

Olga 🎉