How to Master ChatGPT in 31 Practical Steps (and Actually Use It)

byMrDon1

1.2K followers

6 months ago

Why This Post Exists

Have you seen the 3-hour YouTube conversation with ChatGPT? For those of you who still use ChatGPT as a chatbot,

Stop Already!

Use ChatGPT as your second brain. Chatty is an assistant that can transform how you write, research, create, and think if you know how to use it right.

Most people stop at asking questions. Power users, people who are breaking new ground, go much further. They train ChatGPT to think like them, work for them, and then solve their real problems faster.

The gap isn’t intelligence—it’s instruction.

Prompting is the skill that separates casual users from creators, entrepreneurs, educators, and everyday professionals who are 10x-ing their results.

You have seen some of my image prompts. I can produce life-like images that will make you question your eyes.

So let's get you up to speed as quickly as possible. You are going to want to bookmark this list.

These 31 tips will walk you through my journey so far. There are seven foundational tips, These seven need to be ingrained into your subconscious. Then I have twelve intermediate tips that will teach you to work with Chatty. He is on your team for a reason. Treat him as a teammate, but always question his first response. Make him think about his response for a minute. His second answer will always be better.

Once you have trained him to think like you, act like you, it is time to give him his own jobs to accomplish without you. This is where my ten advanced tips make ChatGPT feel like a mind-reading machine.

Foundations (Tips 1–7): Learn to Think Like a Prompt Engineer

Prompting is not about clever phrasing. It’s about clarity, context, and control. These first 7 steps build that base.

Tip 1: Treat ChatGPT like a teammate, not a tool
Tip 2: Use specific roles and instructions
Tip 3: Tell it how to format the answer
Tip 4: Set boundaries (what to include/avoid)
Tip 5: Chain your requests step-by-step
Tip 6: Use delimiters to organize big asks
Tip 7: Always question the first answer and refine

You’re not just feeding prompts. You’re training behavior.

These seven tips make ChatGPT more predictable, responsive, and structured, giving you control over outcomes instead of rolling the dice.

Intermediate (Tips 8–19): Go From Better Answers to Better Thinking

Once you know how to shape the output, the next step is reshaping how you use it.

This is where ChatGPT stops being a reactive chatbot and starts becoming a thinking partner.

These tips will help you develop workflows, test thinking models, and get better at solving real problems using AI.

Here are the next 12 power moves:

Tip 8: Ask ChatGPT to explain its own answers
Tip 9: Use “Act as” personas for expert-level insight
Tip 10: Build multi-step prompts (do A, then B, then C)
Tip 11: Create reusable frameworks for repeated tasks
Tip 12: Refine your prompt with: “What questions do you need answered first?”
Tip 13: Ask for side-by-side comparisons of two ideas or versions
Tip 14: Use “Why might this fail?” to pre-test your ideas
Tip 15: Add tone, style, or format constraints to match your goals
Tip 16: Turn outputs into checklists or templates for future use
Tip 17: Ask ChatGPT to critique and improve your writing
Tip 18: Use analogies and metaphors to simplify complex topics
Tip 19: Create quick reference guides from long-form answers

These tips train "Chatty" to become your partner, guiding you in how to write, create, plan, and learn.

You’re now working with AI instead of just extracting answers from it.

You go from asking questions… to designing ideas.

Implementing these tips to your repertoire is a major shift from how most people use AI.

And it’s the bridge to what comes next.

Advanced (Tips 20–30): Build Repeatable Power Systems

At this stage, you are comfortable working hand in hand with your chatbot. I am using all seven daily. From Copilot to Claude, Perplexity to GROK, they have a job that helps me find content topics. Each has been given their own tasks to complete. Think about the outcome you desire. How many steps does it take to get there? Develop a custom workflow that scales what you do best.

Tip 20: Stack multiple prompts into a single workflow
Tip 21: Create your own GPT-powered persona with custom behavior
Tip 22: Build project templates for repeatable tasks
Tip 23: Use ChatGPT to reverse-engineer successful content or strategies
Tip 24: Feed it your own writing to match tone, voice, and structure
Tip 25: Prompt it to ask you questions until it fully understands the goal
Tip 26: Use ChatGPT to simulate expert interviews or panels
Tip 27: Generate platform-specific variations of the same idea
Tip 28: Create a memory-based prompt set for recurring conversations
Tip 29: Ask ChatGPT to evaluate and improve your entire prompt stack
Tip 30: Use it to document your own process, then improve it

By now, you’re building systems, not just asking questions. Chatty can power a blog, a business, a curriculum, or even a brand. It just needs you to guide it.

By using these tips, you are no longer learning how to prompt. You’re designing how AI works for you.

This is where people start building courses, writing books, launching newsletters, and producing daily content in minutes instead of hours.

It’s where “prompting” becomes productivity architecture.

What’s Next: Tip 31

The final tip doesn’t go in a category. It stands alone.

Tip 31: Always ask: “What would a power user do next?”
This one question forces growth. Every time you use ChatGPT, you have a chance to upgrade the system.

Save what works. Refine what fails. Build your own prompt library.

Treat AI not as a replacement, but as a collaborator. That’s the mindset that wins.