TLDR; I’ve been using ChatGPT regularly since early 2024, and while I’m fully aware of its risks, I’ve found it incredibly helpful in my day-to-day life – as long as it’s used mindfully. From generating recipes with whatever’s in my fridge, creating gym routines tailored to cricket and squash, to planning trips, summarizing meetings, and simplifying complex topics, AI has become a valuable assistant. I avoid overusing it to preserve my critical thinking and always double-check important info. This post breaks down how I use AI across different parts of my life – and I’d love to know how you use it too!

Before I start this, I want to preface by saying that I understand the risks we’re facing – and will continue to face – as AI becomes a dominant part of our society. But I also acknowledge the fact that it’s now an inseparable part of our lives, and we should make use of it. I am not, in any way, shape, or form, advocating an increased use of AI in your life, because I know the damage it can do to one’s critical thinking and how we can become uber-dependent on it. This is just how I use it while balancing the risks and rewards to the best of my ability.

Although ChatGPT (I use this over other AI LLMs for no reason other than I started with it and it now has a good directory of my hobbies/interests, so switching would be inconvenient) came out in November 2022, I didn’t actually start using it regularly until early 2024 – which is super late considering how fast this technology is developing. I tested it out during its initial launch and thought people were overhyping the product, but I was blind to both its usefulness and its harms at that time. Now that I have 18 months of full-time use with it, I see what everyone was talking about. It’s ridiculously powerful, very human-like, and a lot more accurate than I had expected (although it’s not perfect). My usage started off with random questions but has slowly morphed into more of an assistant for tasks that I know I could do myself – ones that won’t hurt my cognitive skills significantly, or questions I know aren’t easily answered online.

Let’s get into the list of tasks below.

Recipes

Lately, this has been my biggest use case for ChatGPT. I give it all the ingredients I have in my fridge and pantry, and ask it to suggest a recipe based on those ingredients. If it includes ingredients I don’t have, I just ask it to replace or remove them. This has been super helpful – especially since we are in the process of moving to a new city and my wife and I are trying to empty everything in our kitchen. I think everyone should try this when they don’t want to go grocery shopping and want to whip up something simple and tasty.

Workout

This was super handy because of the state of the gym in my condo building. The gym only had a dumbbell rack, a bench, and a cable machine. While that should be enough for me to develop a routine using online resources, I also wanted my workouts to focus on exercises that improve my performance in cricket and squash. This presented a challenge: I had to cross-match sport-specific exercises with ones that could be done with my limited equipment.

I already find working out a daunting task, so I decided to outsource the research. I asked ChatGPT to develop a workout plan that targets the muscle groups used in bowling (cricket) and as a beginner squash player, aligned with the time and frequency I wanted to spend in the gym. Surprisingly (or maybe not anymore), it gave me a solid plan that I followed until I found something better. I also asked it to replace exercises I couldn’t do – like pull-ups – with alternatives.

Trip Planning

Granted, this isn’t perfect (I’ve tested it thoroughly – most recently on a 5-day road trip), but it’s a great starting point and gives you a structure to work with. When used in tandem with pre-planned trips people have posted online, you can come up with a solid plan: when and where to stop, must-see sights and restaurants, and tips to reach your destination safely.

Niche Questions

I bucket all my random, miscellaneous questions here – mostly stuff that doesn’t exist on the internet in the way I want to ask it. For example, I asked ChatGPT, “Can I take my LSATs without any understanding or prior knowledge of law?” (Answer: yes), or “What’s that feeling you get when you feel down after a social event?” (Answer: post-social blues).

Now, I could have Googled this, but being able to express the question fully in my tone was super useful and helped me get to the right answer instantly.

Meeting Minutes

I do this frequently at work. I’ll transcribe a Teams call and make my own notes, which I then feed into ChatGPT to generate meeting minutes. Note: it’s not perfect, but I’d say it does about 70–80% of the legwork, with the remaining 20–30% being manual updates to ensure accuracy and nothing important is missed. I later share this with the internal team so everyone can save it locally for future reference.

Editing

Truth be told, I used to get ChatGPT to write emails and content for me. But once I realized my writing and creative muscle was slowly dying – and that it was affecting my critical thinking – I decided to write most of my content myself (this blog post included).

Instead, I now ask ChatGPT to keep my tone and language but fix my grammar and punctuation. I’ve also scripted it to flag portions that don’t make sense or could be improved. That way, I’m using ChatGPT as a SSOME (second set of metaphorical eyes) while still flexing my writing muscle.

Trust me – I do get tempted to ask it to write the whole thing, but I use my entire willpower to resist, because once you go down that road, it’s really hard to come back.

IT Troubleshooting

This one’s mostly for when I’m stuck on something specific while doing something tech-related. For instance, I forgot the password to my Linux laptop and had to go into the BIOS (I think?) to reset it. YouTube helped, but my version of Linux was different from the one in the video.

This is where ChatGPT excels – you can describe your exact scenario and it’ll break things down into super small, simple steps, which might annoy real-life people but is perfect here.

Deep Research

I only discovered this feature recently and was blown away by its scope. You can ask it any question and have it conduct an in-depth review, where it summarizes information and includes citations so you know it’s legit.

I used this to research the effects of turmeric on post-workout recovery using only medical journals. It summarized dozens (if not hundreds) of sources and gave me bite-sized, easy-to-digest info that helped me decide whether I should continue taking that supplement.

Health

I do not use ChatGPT to diagnose illnesses – nor should anyone. Please go see a doctor.

What I do use it for is building a supplement plan that works with my daily schedule, asking for medication timing tips, or checking if a side effect might be due to something I’m taking (and even then, cautiously). Again – doctor first.

Mental Health

I’m an anxious flyer (but love traveling, which sucks), so I talk to it before boarding a flight. I ask it for calming mantras, facts, or reassurances I can repeat when things get bumpy.

Anything more serious? Please talk to a professional. But for this kind of stuff? ChatGPT’s great – and honestly, you should give it a try.

ELI5

This might be my favourite use case. I ask ChatGPT to explain really complex topics like I’m 5 (ELI5 – check out the subreddit too).

Here’s what I got when I asked it to explain the 2008 mortgage crisis like I’m 5:

“Okay! Let’s say your friend has a lemonade stand, but they don’t have enough money to start it. So they ask a bunch of people to lend them money. Those people think, ‘Hmm, lemonade stands are great – they’ll pay us back for sure!’

Now imagine everyone starts lending money to all kinds of lemonade stands – even ones run by kids who don’t really know how to make lemonade. Some stands do okay. But a lot of them can’t pay the money back.

Then the people who gave out all that money realize, ‘Uh-oh… we’re not getting our money back.’ And they had already promised other people that the lemonade stands were a super safe bet! So now everybody is worried and confused and losing money.

That’s kind of what happened in 2008, but instead of lemonade stands, it was people buying houses they couldn’t afford. And the banks who gave out those house loans thought everything would be fine – until it wasn’t. And when everything crashed, it made a big mess for the whole world.” 🏚️💸😬

Pretty impressive, right?

Things to Consider

Some general housekeeping rules if you’re going to use AI regularly:

• Avoid giving it personal data like your passport or social insurance number.
• Take everything with a grain of salt – it’s known to hallucinate.
• Don’t become too dependent on it – it can harm your critical thinking.
• Talk to a professional first if it’s something serious.

Conclusion

I’m of the opinion that AI will take over – not sure if it’ll be a utopia or dystopia, but now that it’s here, I think we should take advantage of it to help improve our lives. The examples above are just how I use it, and honestly, I’d be sad if it was taken away from me.

With careful consideration, you can simplify parts of your life. Just make sure to guard yourself so you don’t become fully reliant. There’s a fine line between being in control vs. being controlled, and only after months have I learned how to balance that.

Anyway, I know this was a long post, but I hope it sparked some ideas on how you might use it in your life.

How do you use AI in your life? Reach out to me on LinkedIn – I’m genuinely interested!