How Lucy uses AI to make everyday life easier (and tastier)

Sure, AI has its flaws, but helping you write a polite complaint, plan dinner and book your next holiday aren’t among them. Here’s how to make ChatGPT part of your everyday life.

By Lucy Bloom

AI is now integrated into our lives whether you know it or not. It’s creative, conversational and available to anyone with an internet connection.

We all have a “wait and see” attitude before adopting new digital tools. Well, the time has come. Right now, we can use AI not just as a background tool, but as our direct assistant in everyday life. 

ChatGPT is one of the most popular tools – a smart digital sidekick that can help you write, plan, search, organise and even make decisions (or at least narrow them down).

Getting started is easy:

1. Go to chat.openai.com
2. Create a free account
3. Start typing – ask it anything, from “what’s for dinner tonight?” to “help me write a complaint letter” to “create an exercise plan that will help me get stronger”...

Here’s a practical guide to the ways ChatGPT can make daily life more efficient, less overwhelming and more fun.

1. A personal shopper

Google is out and ChatGPT is in for shopping. Google cranks out the paid results first and then a whole lotta links that seem to have little to do with your search query. 

So instead I asked ChatGPT to find a replacement for the perfect black trench coat I’d left behind in an Uber last year. I loaded up a picture of the last known sighting of my much-loved Vinnies find. Bingo, the same jacket was in an online store shipping from South Korea. 

On the contrary, Google gave me a million alternatives with ugly buttons.

2. Your travel concierge

AI doesn’t care what other people think. It gives you responses to what YOU are looking for and only within those parameters. It can then suggest operators within your scope and budget.

For instance, I love hiking but I don’t like roughing it too much; ChatGPT suggested glamping. All the hiking joy without a heavy backpack, plus a luxury tent pitched and dinner prepared for at the end of each day. Perfect. 

It’s not perfect, but it’s a genius place to start, especially when you're still in the dreaming phase. I used ChatGPT to help me book a glamping experience on Maria Island in Tasmania in February and it was 10/10, exactly my kinda holiday.

3. Mental load delegation

One of the most underrated uses of AI is as a domestic assistant. You can use it to generate weekly meal plans based on tricky dietary preferences, create shopping lists or turn the contents of your fridge into dinner. 

I used ChatGPT for exactly this on my last night in a holiday house with a very limited collection of groceries to choose from. With a little prompting, I knocked together a delicious pumpkin pie and scoffed the entire thing myself.

4. Write like a diplomat

Writing doesn’t come easily to everyone, especially when it’s a task you’d rather avoid, like responding to a difficult message or writing a tricky email to your boss. 

Now you can just bang out the paragraph as you would like to say it and ask ChatGPT to rephrase it more diplomatically. Tact is not always my strong point so this is one of my favourite ways to use AI. 

‘I refuse to pay more rent for this rotten office space’ was rewritten in a couple of seconds to: ‘I’m not willing to agree to a rent increase for this office space, given its current condition.’ 

5. Explain it to me like I’m a five-year-old

AI is really good at explaining complex or technical topics in a flash. For example, ‘tell me why my top loader washing machine says it has an unbalanced load when it is perfectly balanced’. 

The answer thanks to ChatGPT? Most likely needs new suspension rods. Then it offered a step-by-step video on how to replace them. You can also ask follow-up questions to deepen your understanding without fear of looking like a dill. 

That little conversation with AI saved me $200.

6. Creative inspo

AI is also super quick and clever when it comes to visualising concepts. Sure, you can ask it to churn out a picture of a unicorn smoking a cigar as it floats down the Yarra, but far more useful are prompts to help you with new ideas, floor layouts and killer colour palettes. 

I bought an original oil painting saved from the tip and was about to frame it in a simple timber frame. Instead, ChatGPT suggested a wide brushed gold frame and it looks magnificent.

7. Summarising to look smart

Documents are getting longer and attention spans shorter. The wonderful thing about a summary is that AI can’t get it wrong when you have supplied the entire dataset or source file. 

I was asked my thoughts on a 38-page survey report the other day. I would rather stab myself in the eye than read that report so I loaded it up to ChatGPT and in under 30 seconds I had a succinct one-page summary I could read and then comment on intelligently. 

AI makes you look smarter and saves you time for pumpkin pie.

Of course, it’s worth noting that AI isn’t flawless. It can get facts completely wrong, and it should never be trusted with confidential info. It also can’t be a replacement for human expertise, empathy or logic. Like the time a health chatbot in the UK suggested to those looking for weight loss plans to take up smoking. I wish I was joking.

AI is remarkably useful for so many things. What will you do with all the time you save? I’m going to hang my painting and bake pecan pie this time.

^{Feature image: iStock/Miljan Živković}

More tips for an easier life:

• 8 sneaky hacks for stress-free parties
• 9 creative ways to save on your grocery bills
• Proven ways to reduce your travel costs - don't miss this list