Guide
How to give ChatGPT context about your work
ChatGPT gives generic answers when it's missing your situation. Here's what context it actually needs, a short brief you can fill in, and where to put each part so you write it once.
What context ChatGPT needs
Think of a capable person joining your team for one task. They'd need five things: who you are, what the work is, what's been decided, what's still open, and what a good result looks like. ChatGPT needs the same, and it can't ask around the office to find out.
The most useful part is usually the one people leave out: what's already been ruled out, and why. Without it you get the obvious suggestion you dropped two weeks ago.
A brief you can fill in
Context for this chat:
- Me: [role, company, who I answer to]
- The work: [project, client, what it's for]
- Decided: [decisions, with the reason]
- Open: [questions, who owns them]
- Done means: [what a good result looks like]
- Don't: [things already ruled out]Short is fine. Five filled-in lines beat a pasted ten-page document, because ChatGPT knows what matters instead of guessing from everything.
Where each part goes
- Me goes in custom instructions, so every chat has it.
- The work, Done means and Don't go in a Project's instructions, one Project per client or product.
- Decided and Open change every week. Put them in a short file in the Project, or better, somewhere that updates itself (below).
Memory picks up some of this along the way, but it keeps what you've said in ChatGPT, not what changed elsewhere. More on the four layers: how to stop pasting context into ChatGPT.
Keeping it current
A brief is right the day you write it. Then there's a call, a new deadline, a changed mind, and ChatGPT keeps working from the old version without knowing it.
Cachejay keeps the changing part for you. It records your calls without a bot, keeps the text of what you read and write on your Mac, and rewrites each project's page with what's decided and open. Connect it to ChatGPT and you ask “what's open on Acme?” rather than updating a file. Custom connectors are on Business, Enterprise and Edu, read-only on Pro; on Plus, use Codex. Steps: Cachejay for ChatGPT.
Check the answer, not just the setup
Ask about something you know: “What did we decide about pricing with Acme, and when?” A good answer names the decision and where it came from. If it's vague or wrong, the context isn't reaching it yet. Starting a new chat and losing the thread? How to carry context to a new chat.