What if I told you there are hidden settings and secret tricks in ChatGPT that could literally double your productivity? Hi, I'm Kevin and today we'll look at 11 ChatGPT hacks you need to know to get more done, save time, and impress your co-workers. Oh, and I have a bonus tip at the end that almost no one is talking about, so stick around for that. Let's dive in. Ever wish you could ask a weirdly specific question without it impacting your future results? In the top right-hand corner, we have a button for temporary, or what I like to think of as incognito mode. When I click on this, it changes the prompt field to dark mode. This lets you start a conversation without saving anything to ChatGPT's memory. Now, you might be thinking, why would you use this? When would you use this? Well, let's say that maybe you want to draft a resignation letter from the Kevin Cookie Company. I mean, this is just hypothetical. It's a great company. Now over here, I'll send the prompt through, and I get my response. Now, one thing that might happen is as I have future chats with ChatGPT, it may bring up this career transition again. ChatGPT's memory is based on all of your previous chats. A temporary chat keeps all of those random one-off questions from polluting your ongoing work or changing how it responds next time. In the top left-hand corner, when I click on a new chat, there is now no record of that question. The way I like to think of it, it's like grabbing a cookie, eating it secretly in the break room and leaving no crumbs behind. No one will ever know. Number two, did you know ChatGPT can actually take action on your behalf? I partnered with Zapier to show you how you can connect ChatGPT to thousands of apps like Gmail, Slack, Google Calendar, and even spreadsheets. Here I am logged into Zapier, and I want to use ChatGPT to send custom thank you email to all of the attendees at Cookie Con 2025, our totally real annual cookie festival. Now right up above, I can simply type in what I want to automate. So here when a new row is added to a Google sheet with columns for name and email, this is the source of the data, then I want ChatGPT to generate a short, friendly thank you email for attending our event, personalized with their name. And once it does that, I want it to send the email using Gmail. Right up here, you could simply describe what you would like to automate just by using natural language. Then over here, let's send that to the AI. Right down below, I can see the automation or what they call the Zap. Here I have Google sheets, ChatGPT takes that data to compose a custom email and then it sends it via Gmail. Right up above, let's click on try it. Next, I could connect to all the different services and verify that it works as expected. This turns ChatGPT from just giving you ideas to actually doing the work for you. The way I like to think of it, it's kind of like having an AI powered intern who never complains, never takes a coffee break, and somehow actually loves data entry work. This brings us to number three, one of the most underrated features, and it's something called custom instructions. To set custom instructions, in the top right-hand corner, click on your profile icon, and then in this menu, click on customize ChatGPT. First off, ChatGPT wants to know what it should call us. Well, that's very nice of it to ask. Let's just go with my name, Kevin. Right down here, it says, what do you do? Now that's a really loaded question. Somehow, I work at a cookie company and I end up making these YouTube videos. It's supposed to help drive business, or at least that's what the higher ups say. I'll simply say owner at the Kevin Cookie Company. Then down below, you can also specify what traits ChatGPT should have. Well, let's start simple. You're ChatGPT and you now work at the Kevin Cookie Company. Always respond with light humor, and I also want it to only include bullet points. Now, the reason I like bullet points is, well, I have the attention span of a cookie crumb. And right down below, anything else that it should know, well, let me type in a little bit more context to help with the responses. At the very bottom, we also have some advanced settings. I’ll leave all of these turned on for now. And over here, let's use this for all new chats. In the bottom right, let's click on save. Now we can test it out. Over here, I'll type in a prompt. Give me three marketing ideas for a new triple chocolate chip cookie, and over here, let's send it. In the response from ChatGPT, over here, we see that it tries to incorporate some humor into its responses, and if we scroll down, you'll see that there are lots and lots of bullet points. Now what's the benefit of this? Well, it's kind of like having a personal assistant who just gets you and never forgets what type of cookie you like. In my case, it's chocolate chip. So, you've customized ChatGPT. It remembers your style. Great, right? But sometimes you just want to start fresh, especially if things start to get a little bit off. ChatGPT remembers what you tell it, even better than your significant other. If things start to feel a little bit off, no worries. You can clear its memory. Here's how it works. ChatGPT uses memory to reference previous chats to be more helpful over time. Now over here, you can delete individual chats. Simply hover over one of your chats. Click on the three dots and right down below, you have the option to delete, and you could clean things up. But even after that, there might still be some lingering memories. In the top right-hand corner, click on your profile icon. And over here, let's go into settings. To fully reset things, over on the left-hand side, let's click on personalization. And right here, we can see reference to all of the different saved memories. Currently it's toggled on. If you click on this text, you'll see a record of all the things that ChatGPT knows about you. If you don't like it, right down below, you can delete all. I'll close out of this view. Down below, you can also turn on or off whether ChatGPT should reference your chat history as part of its memory. Now with these different tools, you can wipe the slate clean. It's kind of like hitting a reset button, but without deleting your entire account. Number five. Did you know you can actually talk to ChatGPT? And no, I don't mean like shouting at your screen when it gets something wrong. I mean real voice conversations, kind of like talking to Siri or Alexa, but way smarter. To chat with ChatGPT, over here, simply click on this icon to turn on what's called voice mode. Hello. Hey there, Kevin. Ready to whip up something deliciously fun today? Oh, you betcha. Now here's the fun part. You can actually choose what voice it uses. In the top right-hand corner, click on this settings icon. And right here, you can choose the voice. By default, we were speaking to Vail, but let's try another one. Hey, how's it going? I'm looking forward to working together. Nice. Feel free to ask me about it. Hi there. Nice to meet you. I'm excited to help you get things done. Oh, personally, I really like this one. So, let's go with this voice. Did you know ChatGPT can actually learn from your responses to help improve the model for everyone? Now that's great if you're feeling generous, but if you'd rather keep your data private, you can turn off self-improvement mode in your settings. To turn off self-improvement, in the top right-hand corner, click on your profile icon and then go down to settings. Over on the left-hand side, click on data controls, and right here, we see an option that says improve the model for everyone. So, if you don't want your trade secrets or random shower thoughts contributing to AI's brain power, go ahead and flip that switch off and then click on done. All right. Let's talk file power moves. You can connect your Google Drive and OneDrive directly to ChatGPT. That way you can reference files in your prompts. To set this up, in the top right-hand corner, click on your profile icon, then go to settings, and on the left-hand side, click on connected apps. Right here, you can connect Google Drive, OneDrive, personal, and also work/school. Down below, you also see some beta connectors, including GitHub, Dropbox, and even Microsoft OneDrive with deep research. Now, once you've connected the different services, close out of this view, and right down here, you can now click on this plus icon, and over here, I could add files from these different services. Let's go with Microsoft OneDrive. Right here, I'll go down to a file that I have a question about. Here I see cookie orders. I'll select this, and now it'll reference this file. I can now type in a prompt related to this file. For example, what's the most popular cookie type ordered? Let's send that through. And if we scroll down just a little bit, it looks like it's peanut butter with 113 orders. I better dig into this data. All right. This next one is like unlocking expert mode in ChatGPT. By default, ChatGPT responds based on its built-in knowledge. However, if you'd like to search the entire web in its answer, you can turn on what's called web search. I'll type in a prompt, and right here, let's click on tools, and we have the option to search the web. This way, you'll get fresh up-to-date results. Let's close out of this. You can also choose to limit the responses to your own data. Again, let's click on tools, go down to run deep research, and over here, we can specify the sources. So right here, maybe I wanted to draw from SharePoint. I could turn that on. You could also pull code from GitHub or even documents in Dropbox. Okay. This one's sneaky important. ChatGPT actually has different models you can pick from. At the top, click on this dropdown to view all of the different available models. Each one includes a brief description of what it's best suited for. You'll also find additional models listed further down on the page. Before you get started, double-check which model you're using. It can save you time and also help avoid unnecessary frustration. If you haven't tried Canvas yet, oh boy, you are in for such a treat. To use the ChatGPT Canvas, in the text field, type in your prompt. Then click on tools, and over here, you can select write or code, and when you do that, it enables the Canvas. Now let's send our prompt. This opens up the Canvas. Over on the left-hand side, I have my conversation with ChatGPT. And over on the right-hand side, I have a clean workspace where I could actually build out my draft, my outline, or you could even code as you go. It's kind of like having a live writing coach sitting right next to you, feeding ideas while you focus on the actual work. In the Canvas, I can make manual edits. Here, the title says “baked with love.” I feel like love shows up in far too many songs. So, let's actually highlight the title, and here I could type in my own. Baked to perfection. I think that works better. I can also give feedback to ChatGPT and it'll refine everything that I have in the Canvas. Down below, I'll type in some feedback. I want this to be a pop song. So over here, let's send that. And as I send this to ChatGPT, we'll now see over on the right-hand side that it'll make modifications to the content in the Canvas. It updated all of the content on the Canvas to be a pop song, including that new title that I typed in. Because I typed in my prompt over on the left-hand side, it affects everything that I have in the Canvas. And again, here we call out love in the title. So let me update the title once more. I really only want to update the intro, not everything that's included on the Canvas. So, what do we do? Well, luckily, I could also highlight specific areas within the Canvas. So here I could highlight the introduction, and I get this overlay where I can ask ChatGPT. I'll click on this and let me give some feedback on the intro of the song. Start with a chant or call-and-response that feels like a rallying cry, almost like an anthem. Over here, I could send that to ChatGPT. And now it won't go through, it won't change the title and all of this other content. Instead, it just focuses on this intro. So that way you can target the feedback to just specific parts. Once you're done working in the Canvas, up above, you could close out of this view and you're back into the main chat interface. And right up here, you could always jump back into the Canvas again to continue making edits. This last one is a game changer if you're juggling multiple projects. Over on the left-hand side, you can set up what's called a project. This is a brand-new way to keep all of your related chats, files, and notes organized in one place. I'll click on this and here I could give my project a name. I want to have a project that keeps track of all of our Kevin Cookie Company songs. We're planning on writing a song for every type of cookie that we offer here. Now that I typed in the name, let's click on create project. Over on the left-hand side, I can see a history of all of my different chats. Now this last chat I had related to a song, and I'd like to bring that into the project. I could simply click on one of my previous chats and here I'll drop it into this project. Over here, I can now see that this chat is part of this project. Right up on top, I can also start a new chat directly within this project. I want to type in the name of a cookie and then I want ChatGPT to output a song about that cookie. To do that, we need to add what's called instructions. Right over here, let's click on this. Here, let's type in some instructions. Write a fun original song based on the provided prompt. Then down below, let's click on save. Now let's type in a prompt. I'll enter in chocolate chip and let's send that. And here it spits out a song about chocolate chip cookies and I didn't have to provide any additional context. All I needed to do was type in chocolate chip and then I got a song based on those instructions that I already provided. Let's go back to the main project by clicking up here. I can also add files to this project. That way, any of my chats will reference the different materials that I add to this project. If you're only using ChatGPT on your computer, you're missing out. The mobile app has two superpowers that make it feel like AI in your pocket. Number one, voice conversations. You can literally talk to ChatGPT hands-free like it's your personal assistant. Hello. Hey there, what's up? What's your favorite cookie? Oh, that's a tough one. Number two, if you see something interesting, you can take a picture on the go. Click on the plus icon, open up the camera and then take a photo of the object. And now you can type in a prompt. I'll speak it. Tell me about this object. Nice. If you haven't downloaded the app yet, it's completely free to download. And there you have it. 11 powerful hacks plus a bonus to help you get way more out of ChatGPT. Which tip are you most excited to try? Let me know in the comments. Also, if you learned something new, hit that like button and subscribe for more tips like this. And if you'll excuse me, I've got a cookie delivery to make. See you next time.