Using ChatGPT as a Personal Writing Assistant

ChatGPT is overhyped.

That's what I told myself after 2 weeks of trying (and failing) to use it well.

Turns out, I was just a poor prompt writer.

But after spending hundreds of hours tinkering, I've finally cracked it.

And now, it's my personal writing assistant.

Here's how: pic.twitter.com/IX0QfueJF7

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

From the beginning, I made 1 crucial mistake with ChatGPT:

I expected it to "think" rather than "do."

This means I fed it poorly written, 1-sentence prompts and expected some magical output.

But poor instructions = poor results.

So here's how I reframed it:

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

ChatGPT is my personal intern.

And if I train it correctly, I can arm myself with the world's *most skilled* intern.

Unfortunately, I spent weeks training it all wrong (and blamed my intern for being incompetent).

Here's what I learned about what to avoid:

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

At a high level, ChatGPT is horrible at coming up with things "from scratch."

• "Write me a Twitter thread on X"
• "Draft an email about Y"
• "Come up with ideas about Z"

When given prompts like this, ChatGPT has to make too many arbitrary decisions—which means poor output.

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

So rather than give vague instructions, I learned to give 3 clear constraints in every prompt:

• A specific objective (with input)
• A specific format for the output
• A specific list of things to avoid

But most importantly, I realized 1 thing about prompt writing: pic.twitter.com/MGtC9vE4RZ

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

Prompt writing is an iterative game—you will not get it right on the first try.

But like training an employee, the upfront time investment is worth it.

Because once you have a working, reliable prompt, you can use it forever.

So with this in mind, how do I use it?

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

I use ChatGPT for 3 types of tasks:

1. Executing templates (that I create)

2. Enhancing something already written

3. Synthesizing unstructured notes into a desired output

Notice: There is no "thinking" required in any of these—just executing.

Let's look at some examples:

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

First, I have a ChatGPT prompt template for idea generation.

This one took me quite a bit of time to train, but now I can write (and learn) about *anything*

All I feed it is a topic I want to explore.

Then, it generates 2 lists (which I'll walk through in the next 2 tweets). pic.twitter.com/Djp67eRj53

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

1. It generates a list of "actions" that someone interested in that topic might have questions about.

My constraint: Each must start with a verb so I can write things that help people accomplish that action.

Here's an example with the topic of "Building a writing habit" pic.twitter.com/ez0gnPZsaz

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

And just to drive the point home, here's the list of actions for 4 other topics:

1. Learning to play House Music (my current hobby)
2. Buying your first rental property in NYC
3. Transferring bitcoin to a hardware wallet
4. Traveling through Greece in the summertime pic.twitter.com/WywQmObejN

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

2. From this list of subtopics, I then have it ask me 3 "questions" about that subtopic.

I trained it on a list of common questions to ask, then I just say "ask."

And these become content topics—which makes writing incredibly easy because I literally just answer the question. pic.twitter.com/PMCPOPA44m

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

You could see how each of these subtopics is a "pillar" piece of content helping a reader achieve the desired result.

And you build that "pillar" piece from the ground up by answering the questions.

Then, you can repurpose each part of the pillar piece into short-form content.

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

Alrighty, that's it for idea generation.

And now I've never been more excited to explore new topics.

(If you want me to send you that prompt, hit reply on the top tweet and let me know—I'll shoot it your way.)

Now, onto the second way I use ChatGPT: rewriting and remixing.

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

I often get stuck in my own pattern of writing, failing to ever explore other ways to communicate an idea.

Luckily, this is what ChatGPT is best at.

So with the ideas generated above, I'll take a crack at my first draft.

Then, I have ChatGPT rewrite in 4 specific ways:

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

1) I ask ChatGPT to rewrite my writing with 6 different "tones":

1. More formal
2. More serious
3. More sarcastic
4. More optimistic
5. More pessimistic
6. More lighthearted

This immediately taps me into new writing voices that I can work with to enhance my own voice.

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

2) I ask ChatGPT to rewrite my writing as 7 different authors:

1. Gary Vaynerchuk
2. Maya Angelou
3. George R.R. Martin
4. Winston Churchill
5. Brene Brown
6. J.K. Rowling
7. Ernest Hemingway

Again, this gives me a 360-degree perspective of ways I can talk about my idea.

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

3) I ask ChatGPT to rewrite my writing with 7 different "goals":

1. More concise
2. More emphatic
3. More humorous
4. More descriptive
5. More persuasive
6. More informative
7. More action-oriented

This one is my personal favorite.

Great for rewriting emails/messages.

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

4) Lastly, I ask ChatGPT to rewrite my writing for 7 different demographics:

1. For 3rd graders
2. For 8th graders
3. For college students
4. For busy 40-year-old moms
5. For an 80-year-old who reads slowly
6. For an audience where English is a second language

(I love number 5)

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

You get the point.

I always start with my own writing to give it something to work with.

ThenI look at it from different angles, picking and choosing bits I can use to enhance my own voice.

And all of this happens in *seconds* which would be impossible to do otherwise.

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

Alrighty—I think that's enough for one thread.

Over the coming days I'll write breakdowns with deeper dives into each of these:

• Journaling
• Idea generation
• Headline iteration
• Brain dump synthesizing
• Research and summarization

So be on the lookout for those!

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

To recap, how I turned ChatGPT into my personal writing intern:

• Used it to "do," not "think"
• Fed it 3 clear constraints
• Iterated those constraints over time
• Build it into my personal idea generator
• Trained it to rewrite my drafts with a 360-degree perspective

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

Boom—that's it.

If you found this helpful, jump back to the top tweet to like and retweet it (link below).

And hit reply if you want me to send over the idea generation prompt!https://t.co/q6WkHUhI36

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

If this is inspiring you to take writing with AI more seriously, start with this free 13,000-word Ultimate Guide + email course.

It's taught 60,000 people the fundamentals they need to know to get the most out of ChatGPT (and other AI writing platforms)https://t.co/34AcQYuW3r

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023

And lastly, if you're looking to up your writing game, here's a list of my 10 most popular threads.

Pair this ChatGPT thread with the fundamentals I teach in the other threads below and you have everything you need.https://t.co/7HvTiu4YcM

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) March 23, 2023