LESSON 1 OF 6
Chat, project, or custom GPT
BY THE END OF THIS LESSON
Choose the right ChatGPT surface before you start typing.
A chat forgets, a project does not
Most frustration with ChatGPT is a surface mismatch rather than a prompting problem. A plain chat is a single conversation: it can see what you have said inside it, and nothing else. Close it and that context is gone.
If you find yourself pasting the same background at the start of every conversation, you are using a chat for work that wanted a project.
The three surfaces
one conversation
a job you do the same way
A chat — one conversation. Right for a question you will not return to.
A project — a workspace holding files and instructions that every conversation inside it can see. Right for anything ongoing: a client, a product, a piece of research.
A custom GPT — a configured assistant you can name, give standing instructions and reference files, and reuse. Right for a job you do the same way every time, especially if someone else needs to do it too.
How to choose
Two questions settle it almost every time.
Will I come back to this subject? If yes, a project. The cost of making one is seconds; the cost of not making one is re-explaining your business every week.
Do I do this job the same way each time? If yes, a custom GPT. A job with a fixed shape — turn a transcript into notes, draft a reply in our tone — is worth configuring once rather than describing repeatedly.
WORKED EXAMPLE
A CHAT DOING A PROJECT’S JOB
A new chat every Monday that starts: "I run marketing for a warehouse scheduling company, our buyers are operations managers, we write in plain English, never say leverage..." and then asks for that week’s posts.
A PROJECT
A project called Marketing, holding the brand guide and a note on who the buyers are. Every conversation inside it opens already knowing that. Monday’s message is just: "Three posts from these two customer calls."
The background was identical every week, which is the definition of standing context. Moving it into the project removes the retyping and, more importantly, removes the temptation to skip it when you are busy — which is exactly when the output goes generic.
YOUR TURN
Sort your own recurring conversations into the right surface.
RUN THIS
I am going to describe the AI conversations I have most often. For each one, tell me whether it belongs in a plain chat, a project, or a custom GPT, and say which of my details would become standing context rather than something I retype. Ask me for anything you need to decide. Here they are: [describe three or four]
What a good result looks like
Anything you do weekly should come back as a project or a custom GPT. If everything comes back as "a chat", your descriptions were probably too vague — say what you paste in each time.
KNOWLEDGE CHECK
Answer all 2 correctly to complete this lesson.
1. You explain your business at the start of every conversation. What does that tell you?
2. What makes a custom GPT the right surface rather than a project?
REMEMBER THIS
Chat for one-offs, a project for a subject you return to, a custom GPT for a job you repeat.