There is definitely been a number of golly-wow, gee-whiz press about generative synthetic intelligence (AI) over the previous yr or so. I am actually responsible of manufacturing a few of it myself. However instruments like ChatGPT are additionally simply that: instruments. They can be utilized to assist out with tasks identical to different productiveness software program.

Right this moment, I am going to stroll you thru a fast mission the place ChatGPT saved me a couple of hours of grunt work. Whilst you’re unlikely to want to do the identical mission, I am going to share my pondering for the prompts, which can encourage you to make use of ChatGPT as a workhorse device for a few of your tasks.

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That is simply the kind of mission I might have assigned to a human assistant, again after I had human assistants. I am telling you this truth as a result of I structured the assignments for ChatGPT equally to how I might have for somebody working for me, again after I was sitting in a cubicle as a managerial cog of a large company.

The mission

In a month or so, I am going to submit what I prefer to name a “stunt article.” Stunt articles are tasks I provide you with which can be enjoyable and that I do know readers shall be serious about. The article I am engaged on is a rundown of how a lot pc gear I should purchase from Temu for beneath $100 complete. I got here in at $99.77.

Placing this text collectively concerned wanting on the Temu web site for gadgets to highlight. For instance, I discovered an iPad keyboard and mouse that value about $6.

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To remain beneath my $100 price range, I wished so as to add all of the Temu hyperlinks to a spreadsheet, discover every value, after which transfer issues round till I acquired the precise complete price range I wished to spend.

The problem was changing the Temu hyperlinks into one thing helpful. That is the place ChatGPT got here in.

Part 1: Gathering the hyperlinks

The very first thing I did was collect all my hyperlinks. For every product, I copied the hyperlink from Temu and pasted it right into a Notion web page. When pasting a URL, Notion provides you the choice to create bookmark blocks that not solely comprise hyperlinks but in addition comprise, crucially, product names. Here is a snapshot of that web page:

As you may see, I’ve began choosing the blocks. As soon as you choose all of the blocks, you may copy them. I simply pasted all the set right into a textual content editor, which seemed like this:

The web page appears to be like ugly, however the result’s helpful.

Part 2: Figuring out the info

Let’s check out one of many information blocks. I switched my editor out of darkish mode so it is simpler so that you can see the info parts within the block:

There are three key parts. The gold textual content reveals the title of the product, surrounded by braces. The inexperienced textual content is the bottom URL of the product, surrounded by parenthesis. There is a query mark that separates the primary web page URL from all of the random monitoring information handed to the Temu web page. I simply wished the primary URL. The purple sections spotlight the delimiters — that is the info we will feed into ChatGPT.

Part 3: Instructing ChatGPT to acknowledge the info

I first fed ChatGPT this immediate:

Settle for the next information and await additional directions.

Then I copied all the data from the textual content editor and pasted it into ChatGPT. At this level, ChatGPT knew to attend for extra particulars.

The subsequent step is the place the meat of the mission befell. I wished ChatGPT to drag out the titles and the hyperlinks, and depart the remainder behind. Here is that immediate:

The info above consists of a collection of blocks of information. Firstly of every block is a bit inside [] brackets. For every block, designate this as TITLE.

Following the [] brackets is an open paren (adopted by an internet URL). For every block, extract that URL, however get rid of every part following the query mark, and in addition get rid of the query mark. Most URLs will then finish in .html. We’ll designate this as URL.

For every block, show the TITLE adopted by a carriage return, adopted by the URL, adopted by two newlines.

This course of completed two issues. It allowed me to call the info, so I may discuss with it later. The method additionally allowed me to check whether or not ChatGPT understood the project.

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ChatGPT did the project accurately however stopped about two-thirds by means of when its buffer ran out. I informed the bot to proceed and acquired the remainder of the info.

Doing this course of by hand would have concerned plenty of annoying slicing and pasting. ChatGPT did the work in lower than a minute.

Part 4: Cleansing up Temu’s overly complicated titles

For my mission, Temu’s titles are simply an excessive amount of. As a substitute of:

10 Inch LCD Writing Pill, Electronis Memo With Leather-based Protecting Case, Digital Drawing Board For Digital Handwriting Pad Doodle Board, Presents For

I wished one thing extra like:

LCD writing pill with case

I gave this project to ChatGPT as properly. I reminded the device that it had beforehand parsed and recognized the info. I discover that reminding ChatGPT a couple of earlier step helps it extra reliably incorporate that step into subsequent steps. Then I informed it to provide me titles. Here is that immediate:

You simply created a listing with TITLE and URL. Do you bear in mind? For the above gadgets, please summarize the TITLE gadgets in 4-6 phrases every. Solely capitalize correct phrases and the primary phrase. Give it again to me in a bullet record.

I acquired again a listing like this, however for all 26 gadgets:

• LCD writing pill with case
• 360-degree rotating pill stand
• 1080p video seize system
• USB 3.0 HDMI seize card
• Superior sound card for professionals
• USB 3.0 growth card

Part 5: Create a listing with hyperlinks

My purpose was to repeat and paste this record of clickable hyperlinks into Excel so I may use column math to mess around with the gadgets I deliberate to order, including and eradicating gadgets till I acquired to my $100 price range. I wished the names clickable within the spreadsheet as a result of it might be a lot simpler to handle and bounce backwards and forwards between Temu and my mission spreadsheet.

So, my last ChatGPT job was to show the record above right into a set of clickable hyperlinks. Once more, I began by reminding the device of the work it had accomplished. Then I informed it to create a listing with hyperlinks:

Do you see the bulleted record you simply created? That could be a record of summarized titles.

Okay, make the identical record once more, however flip every summarized title right into a stay internet hyperlink with its corresponding URL.

And that was that. I acquired all of the hyperlinks I wanted and ChatGPT did all of the grunt work. I pasted the outcomes into my spreadsheet, selected the merchandise, and positioned the order.

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That is the ultimate spreadsheet. There have been extra merchandise after I began the method, however I added and eliminated them from the REMAINING column till I acquired the price range I used to be aiming for:

The good thing about ChatGPT as a device

This was a mission I may have achieved myself. However it might have required a ton of slicing and pasting, and an inexpensive quantity of additional thought to summarize all of the product titles. It might have taken me two or three hours of grunt work and doubtless added to my wrist ache.

However by pondering this work by means of as an project that may very well be delegated, all the ChatGPT expertise took me lower than 10 minutes. It most likely took me much less time to make use of ChatGPT to do all that grunt work and write this text than it might have taken me to do all that slicing, pasting, and summarizing.

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This kind of mission is not fancy and it is not horny. However it saved me a couple of hours of labor I might have discovered tedious and unsightly. Subsequent time you may have a data-parsing mission, think about using ChatGPT.

Oh, and keep tuned. As quickly as Temu sends me their haul, I am going to submit the detailed article about how a lot tech gear you will get for beneath $100. It will be enjoyable. See you there.

You may observe my day-to-day mission updates on social media. You’ll want to subscribe to my weekly replace publication, and observe me on Twitter/X at @DavidGewirtz, on Fb at Fb.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.