How I Use ChatGPT Work and GPT-5.6 to Do Everything (Beginner Tutorial) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Hey everyone, I now use Chat GPT Work
2. 0:03and Codex for almost everything that I
3. 0:06do on my computer and I'm going to show
4. 0:08you exactly how to do the same in this
5. 0:10video.
6. 0:12Ever since OpenAI launched GPT-5.6,
7. 0:16the Chat GPT desktop app has been
8. 0:18growing like a weed.
9. 0:19It literally is growing by a million
10. 0:21users every single day.
11. 0:24But let's answer some burning questions
12. 0:26first, right? Number one,
13. 0:28when should you use Chat, Work, or
14. 0:30Codex?
15. 0:31Which GPT-5.6 model is right for you?
16. 0:35How do you connect Codex to all the
17. 0:37favorite apps that you actually use? And
18. 0:39how do you keep projects and threads
19. 0:41organized as you have more chat
20. 0:43conversations?
21. 0:44How do you build an AI chief of staff in
22. 0:46Codex to manage your emails and
23. 0:47calendar? And how do you use Codex on
24. 0:49your phone? And finally, how do you
25. 0:51build beautiful websites for free and
26. 0:54get Codex to work for you while you
27. 0:56sleep? I'm going to cover all of these
28. 0:58topics step-by-step in this tutorial.
29. 1:01It's going to be super
30. 1:01beginner-friendly, so let's get right
31. 1:03into it.
32. 1:04First, what exactly is the difference
33. 1:07between Chat, Work, and Codex? Well,
34. 1:09basically it boils down to this. Chat is
35. 1:12the regular Chat GPT that we're all
36. 1:13familiar with. Work is Chat GPT, except
37. 1:17it can now work inside your favorite
38. 1:18apps. And Codex adds features designed
39. 1:22for coding and developers.
40. 1:24Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of this
41. 1:26Chat GPT Work and Codex distinction.
42. 1:29As far as I can tell, the main
43. 1:30difference is the UI and how responses
44. 1:33are presented. So, let's take a look.
45. 1:36So, here we have the Chat GPT desktop
46. 1:38app. And you can see up here that we can
47. 1:40switch between Work and Codex, right?
48. 1:43And pretty much the only difference, if
49. 1:45you look at this, is when I switch to
50. 1:46Codex, there is now a pull requests page
51. 1:49here. And pull requests, by the way, are
52. 1:51basically what developers use to review
53. 1:54and approve each other's code. And if I
54. 1:56switch back to Chat GPT Work, that part
55. 1:58is missing.
56. 1:59But as far as I can tell, that's pretty
57. 2:00much the main difference between ChatGPT
58. 2:02work and Codex. In my opinion, these two
59. 2:04things should exist as one thing because
60. 2:07Codex itself is not too difficult to
61. 2:10understand and use. It's basically just
62. 2:12a bunch of chat threads except now you
63. 2:13can actually do stuff.
64. 2:15Personally, I prefer to stick to Codex,
65. 2:18but ChatGPT work works perfectly fine,
66. 2:20too.
67. 2:22Okay, now let's talk about something
68. 2:23that's even more confusing. So, GPT 5.6
69. 2:26comes with three different models: Soul,
70. 2:29Terra, and Luna. And each option has
71. 2:31five different effort levels from low to
72. 2:34ultra. So, what model should you use?
73. 2:36Well, here's a chart that shows
74. 2:38intelligence versus output tokens for
75. 2:40GPT 5.6.
76. 2:42We're looking for higher intelligence
77. 2:44but fewer output tokens. And you can see
78. 2:47here that the sweet spot is GPT 5.6 Soul
79. 2:50medium effort.
80. 2:52It delivers good enough intelligence
81. 2:55without burning all your tokens.
82. 2:57And sometimes I use Soul with high
83. 2:59effort for planning here.
84. 3:00But overall, I really haven't noticed
85. 3:02much of a difference between the two.
86. 3:04And I almost never use Terra or Luna.
87. 3:08So, in my opinion, you should just stick
88. 3:09with GPT 5.6 Soul with medium effort to
89. 3:13get good enough intelligence while still
90. 3:15conserving your tokens.
91. 3:17Now, let's jump back into the ChatGPT
92. 3:19desktop app.
93. 3:20If you're using ChatGPT on the web, the
94. 3:23desktop app is the biggest AI native
95. 3:25upgrade you can do.
96. 3:27You can just do so much more on the
97. 3:28desktop app than on the web. And the way
98. 3:30to install it, just search for ChatGPT
99. 3:32app install on Google and you'll find
100. 3:34it.
101. 3:35So, the first thing I'd like to do on a
102. 3:37fresh install is to go to settings,
103. 3:40personalization, and change the custom
104. 3:42instructions. So, let's go to settings.
105. 3:45Let's go to personalization. You can see
106. 3:48here that we have the custom
107. 3:49instructions here. Let me expand it over
108. 3:50here a little bit more.
109. 3:52The reason I like to do this is because
110. 3:54I like to customize how the model
111. 3:56responds to me. And there's things that
112. 3:58I want the model to understand.
113. 4:00So, let's kind of walk through this. The
114. 4:01first bullet is telling the model about
115. 4:04me, right? I have over a decade of
116. 4:06product experience, and I'm also a
117. 4:07creator.
118. 4:09I want to learn technical concepts.
119. 4:11That's something I'm working on. So,
120. 4:14while I'm building with Codex and
121. 4:16ChatGPT work, I like to have the model
122. 4:19actually teach me system design,
123. 4:21technical trade-offs, how APIs work, and
124. 4:23so on and so forth.
125. 4:25And I like to tell it to avoid jargon
126. 4:27and explain everything in
127. 4:28easy-to-understand way. So, that's
128. 4:30number one.
129. 4:31Number two is I have a pet peeve where I
130. 4:33don't like the model to use code blocks
131. 4:36for anything except for actual code. It
132. 4:38tends to want to use code blocks for
133. 4:40just like regular prose, which I really
134. 4:41don't like. So, that's there.
135. 4:43And number three and a four, I think is
136. 4:45pretty important. So, number three is be
137. 4:48candid and thoughtful. Tell me what I
138. 4:50need to hear while staying curious and
139. 4:52caring. And one thing that I've noticed,
140. 4:54even with the best models like GPT 5.6,
141. 4:57is that it tends to just want to agree
142. 4:59with you. It's kind of like rewarded by
143. 5:01just always agreeing with what you what
144. 5:02you think. And what I want the model to
145. 5:04do is actually to stick to principles
146. 5:06and push back when it needs to, right?
147. 5:09Okay, so number four is write plainly in
148. 5:11the active voice, minimize hedging,
149. 5:14padding, and grand claims, and avoid all
150. 5:16these AI slop terms.
151. 5:18I really don't like "This isn't about X,
152. 5:21this is about Y." And a lot of em
153. 5:23dashes, a lot of just like throat
154. 5:24clearing stuff. Especially since I use
155. 5:26ChatGPT a lot to edit my writing, so
156. 5:29having this kind of stuff here is very
157. 5:30important. And by the way, if you check
158. 5:32out my GitHub, which I've linked in the
159. 5:34description, there is a free no AI slop
160. 5:37tool that goes into way more than these
161. 5:39things. It actually removes over 20
162. 5:41pieces of AI slop phrases to help you
163. 5:44edit any piece of writing. So, check
164. 5:45that out in the video description.
165. 5:47And then there's some stuff down here,
166. 5:49and I don't think you actually need this
167. 5:50stuff. The reason I have this stuff here
168. 5:52is because I used to use Claude code a
169. 5:54lot, and I still do sometimes, and I
170. 5:56want to make sure that I have one
171. 5:58canonical set of skills between Claude
172. 6:01code and ChatGPT work and Codex. So,
173. 6:04there's something called SimLink to make
174. 6:05sure that both apps refer to the same
175. 6:07folder. But, if you just use Codex, you
176. 6:09don't actually need five and six. The
177. 6:11point here is that you want to add some
178. 6:13of these custom instructions
179. 6:15to personalize how the model responds to
180. 6:17you.
181. 6:18The next thing I'd like to do,
182. 6:20again, on a fresh install of the ChatGPT
183. 6:22app, is go to plugins.
184. 6:24Now, plugins are extremely important to
185. 6:27let ChatGPT actually work inside your
186. 6:31favorite apps.
187. 6:32And I think the bare minimum set that
188. 6:33you should install is Gmail, Google
189. 6:36Calendar, Documents, Presentations,
190. 6:38Spreadsheets, and Google Drive, right?
191. 6:40So, that ChatGPT can actually manage
192. 6:41your emails, calendar, and edit your
193. 6:44docs, presentations, and sheets.
194. 6:46Let's take a look at all the plugins
195. 6:47that I have installed.
196. 6:49So, here they are. I have over 23
197. 6:51plugins installed.
198. 6:53And then, other than what I mentioned,
199. 6:54there's the PDF. You know, I really
200. 6:56dislike using Adobe Acrobat and any
201. 6:59Adobe product, to be honest. So, being
202. 7:01able to let ChatGPT read and also edit
203. 7:03my PDFs, it's just incredibly useful.
204. 7:06And scrolling down here, there's other
205. 7:08stuff around Slack for community
206. 7:10messages, Notion for my wiki, Figma for
207. 7:13design, and RemNote for my meeting
208. 7:17notes, right? So,
209. 7:19as far as I can tell,
210. 7:21there isn't any real drawback to
211. 7:23installing a ton of plugins. So,
212. 7:25definitely install plugins for all the
213. 7:27apps that you work with on a daily
214. 7:29basis. This is the key setup step that
215. 7:32makes Codex incredibly powerful. So, I
216. 7:35cannot reinforce this point enough.
217. 7:38Okay, now that we covered plugins, let's
218. 7:40cover projects and threads.
219. 7:42So, I have two pinned threads here, and
220. 7:44if I expand this,
221. 7:46here are all my projects, right?
222. 7:48And as you can see, I have projects for
223. 7:51my personal operating system and various
224. 7:54products and apps that I'm working on
225. 7:55down here.
226. 7:57Now, within each project, I like to
227. 7:59organize threads based on individual
228. 8:01tasks and workflows. So, for example, in
229. 8:04my personal OS project, I have threads
230. 8:06for making podcast episodes for various
231. 8:09guests,
232. 8:10for helping to edit my newsletter post,
233. 8:13drafting and posting social posts across
234. 8:15all social networks,
235. 8:17and so on and so forth, right? And one
236. 8:19thing that Codex does really well is
237. 8:22it's really good at compacting previous
238. 8:25messages in the thread while still
239. 8:26remembering what they were about. So,
240. 8:28basically, that allows me to essentially
241. 8:32just have extremely long-running
242. 8:33threads. You can see this is a very long
243. 8:35thread with a lot of back-and-forth
244. 8:36conversation,
245. 8:38and I just keep going. I'm not worried
246. 8:39about Codex getting confused or not
247. 8:42knowing what's going on. Another benefit
248. 8:44of of having one thread per workflow is
249. 8:47that it's just so much more easier to
250. 8:48manage than having to manage a whole
251. 8:50bunch of threads for individual tasks,
252. 8:52right?
253. 8:54Now, to organize your threads better,
254. 8:56you can also drag and drop individual
255. 8:57threads inside a project, and of course,
256. 9:00you can pin threads to the top that
257. 9:02you're working on.
258. 9:04One more thing is if you hold down the
259. 9:05pound sign on your Mac, you can quickly
260. 9:08navigate between different threads. So,
261. 9:09I can just go to pound three, pound
262. 9:11four, pound two, and so on to now
263. 9:13navigate.
264. 9:15So, that's basically threads. The TLDR
265. 9:17here is that I recommend all of you
266. 9:20use long-running threads, one thread per
267. 9:22workflow.
268. 9:24And now that everything's organized, let
269. 9:26me show you how to actually get some
270. 9:28real work done.
271. 9:30Okay, so all of us have to manage emails
272. 9:33and calendar meetings, right? And these
273. 9:35days, I don't actually go to Gmail and
274. 9:37Google Calendar much. Instead, I try to
275. 9:40manage everything through Coda. So, let
276. 9:42me show you exactly how that works.
277. 9:44So, first of all, you need to make sure
278. 9:45that you have the plugins installed for
279. 9:48Gmail and Google Calendar for this to
280. 9:50work. And then, what I recommend you do
281. 9:52is you start a chief of staff thread.
282. 9:54And the way you start a thread is go to
283. 9:55new task and just say, "Let's make this
284. 9:57the chief of staff thread."
285. 9:59Okay. So, now that we have this thread
286. 10:01in place, one thing that I frequently
287. 10:03miss with my emails is I read the email
288. 10:05and I don't follow up right away and I
289. 10:07just forget to follow up, right? So,
290. 10:09what I did is I started by asking Coda,
291. 10:12"Check my email from the past 3 days and
292. 10:14list the top five open action items to
293. 10:17follow up on and emails to unsubscribe
294. 10:20from. And also link the actual emails.
295. 10:22Do not share any confidential
296. 10:23information because we're giving this
297. 10:25tutorial."
298. 10:26So, here's the list that Coda came up
299. 10:27with.
300. 10:28It looks like there is a new device
301. 10:31logging, there is a Google payment
302. 10:33issue, there is an automation that I
303. 10:35built that broke, there is some thread
304. 10:37about granola and a meeting with Brex,
305. 10:39right? And here is a bunch of
306. 10:42unsubscribe candidates. And if I click
307. 10:44one of these things,
308. 10:45it'll take me to the actual email.
309. 10:48So, what's the next step here? Now that
310. 10:50we have this list,
311. 10:52what we can do is basically just tell
312. 10:54Coda, "Hey, why don't you unsubscribe
313. 10:57from all five emails?"
314. 10:59And because Coda can use the browser, it
315. 11:01can actually open each of these
316. 11:03individual emails in Chrome
317. 11:05and click the unsubscribe button and
318. 11:07just get it done. So, it looks like it
319. 11:09worked for 2 minutes and it unsubscribed
320. 11:12to all five emails that I wanted to
321. 11:14unsubscribe from, which is pretty
322. 11:15incredible, right? Because previously, I
323. 11:17had to go into the emails and click
324. 11:19unsubscribe one by one and there's
325. 11:20always new marketing emails coming in.
326. 11:24I also use Coda all the time to find and
327. 11:27follow up on previous emails.
328. 11:30So, for example, I sent an email to book
329. 11:33a hotel in Japan and they haven't
330. 11:35replied to me yet. So, I basically ask
331. 11:37Codex to find the email for the Yufuin
332. 11:39Hotel in Japan to send a follow message,
333. 11:42but let me review it first. So, found
334. 11:44the email thread and it said that I sent
335. 11:47the last follow message a week ago and
336. 11:49it went off and actually drafted a
337. 11:51reply.
338. 11:52So, I'm following up on my reservation.
339. 11:54We want to stay during Christmas time,
340. 11:55prefer this room, and so on so forth.
341. 11:58And because and because we have our
342. 12:01Gmail extension hooked up to Codex, I
343. 12:03can just tell it to send the email after
344. 12:05I edit and review it. So, I just said
345. 12:07send and it got sent successfully to the
346. 12:10existing thread. Now, to take this to
347. 12:12the next level, what you can do is you
348. 12:14can train Codex to reply to emails using
349. 12:17your voice and tone.
350. 12:19If you look at this email, it's a little
351. 12:20bit too formal. So, why don't we
352. 12:22actually get Codex to learn my voice and
353. 12:24tone for emails? So, basically I told it
354. 12:27to review my sent messages and let's
355. 12:29create a slash email skill to draft
356. 12:32emails in my voice and style. And then
357. 12:35it worked for 4 minutes. Let's take a
358. 12:37look at what actually did. It went
359. 12:38through a bunch of emails and reviewed
360. 12:40everything. It actually even recognized
361. 12:42that my voice is different whether I
362. 12:44know the person versus someone new,
363. 12:47right? And then there there's something
364. 12:48here. And it basically created a skill
365. 12:50here. Let's take a look. So, created a
366. 12:51skill called email and here's the
367. 12:54workflow and here is the voice that it
368. 12:57should follow. Now, let's actually test
369. 13:00the skill with the Japan email draft
370. 13:02that we had.
371. 13:03And 30 seconds later, you can see here
372. 13:06that it drafted the email that's a
373. 13:08little bit shorter and less formal,
374. 13:09which is more casual like my style.
375. 13:13So, this is important, guys. You notice
376. 13:14how I asked Codex to do some research on
377. 13:17my writing style for emails.
378. 13:20It put together a skill for me, right?
379. 13:22And then I actually tested the skill to
380. 13:25make sure that it's matching my voice
381. 13:27before I just kind of said, "Okay, let's
382. 13:28keep using this from now on."
383. 13:30Like you always want to test the skills
384. 13:31that Codex makes
385. 13:33to just make sure that it actually is
386. 13:35what you want, right? Cuz usually it
387. 13:36doesn't really get it perfect in one
388. 13:37shot. You got to iterate and go back and
389. 13:39forth with it and make it better. And I
390. 13:41have another video about building
391. 13:43self-improving skills that I'll link in
392. 13:45the video description. Now that we
393. 13:47talked about email, let's quickly talk
394. 13:49about using Codex to manage your
395. 13:51calendar as well.
396. 13:53You know, I always found it a pain to
397. 13:55open Google Calendar and manually
398. 13:57schedule an event by clicking a bunch of
399. 13:59buttons and entering a bunch of text.
400. 14:02It's much easier to just ask Codex to
401. 14:04book calendar meetings for you.
402. 14:07So for example, I asked it to book a
403. 14:09Google Meet meeting between me and Char
404. 14:12for Friday at 9:00 a.m. PST called Peter
405. 14:14Char for 15 minutes.
406. 14:17And Codex basically went off
407. 14:19and it found Char's email, right? And it
408. 14:22even found that I had a conflicting
409. 14:23meeting where I had to drop off my kid
410. 14:25at her camp during the same time.
411. 14:28And eventually booked the calendar event
412. 14:30here and even added a Google Meet link.
413. 14:33If you're booking a meeting to for
414. 14:35example meet someone for coffee or
415. 14:36lunch, you can just mention the name of
416. 14:38the restaurant and Codex will find it
417. 14:39for you. Or if you're having like just
418. 14:41kind of like a WhatsApp conversation
419. 14:44with someone and you agree to a meeting
420. 14:46time and place, usually what I do is I
421. 14:48just screenshot the conversation and
422. 14:50copy it directly into Codex and it's
423. 14:53able to book the meeting for me.
424. 14:55So these are just like super convenient,
425. 14:57especially if you do it from your phone.
426. 14:59Another thing that I did recently a few
427. 15:00weeks ago was I just asked Codex to add
428. 15:04all upcoming World Cup matches starting
429. 15:06from the quarterfinals onwards and book
430. 15:09it on my calendar as optional events.
431. 15:12And it did a bunch of research and
432. 15:13basically added all the matches for me.
433. 15:15For me to do this manually, it would
434. 15:17have taken me at least 5 10 minutes to
435. 15:19do, right? But Codex basically did it in
436. 15:211 or 2 minutes. Now, let me show you
437. 15:23guys something more advanced they can do
438. 15:26on your calendar.
439. 15:27So, what I asked Codex now is find and
440. 15:30list all upcoming podcast meetings in
441. 15:32the next 7 days cuz I do a lot of
442. 15:34podcast interviews.
443. 15:35So, it basically found that I had three
444. 15:38podcast interviews. There's one today
445. 15:39with Jason from Codex,
446. 15:41Hamel, and then Paul.
447. 15:43Now, I have a podcast prep skill
448. 15:47that I use to prepare for each episode
449. 15:50by doing research online, drafting a few
450. 15:52questions to ask the guest, and then
451. 15:54putting together an interview guide.
452. 15:56So, basically I just ran podcast prep
453. 15:58for Paul, which I'm interviewing on
454. 16:00Thursday.
455. 16:01And it's asking me a bunch of questions
456. 16:03about what do you most want viewers to
457. 16:05learn from Paul?
458. 16:06And I have some reference material and
459. 16:08Paul's articles on X that I pasted here.
460. 16:11And then it went off and did 4 minutes
461. 16:13of work. So, it did a bunch of research,
462. 16:14it searched a bunch of stuff,
463. 16:17and it came up with a research-backed
464. 16:19outline, right? Like you see here.
465. 16:21And with these interviews, I found it
466. 16:23best to figure out the packaging, like
467. 16:25basically the YouTube title and
468. 16:26thumbnail first, so you can figure out
469. 16:28what the right angle is before you
470. 16:29actually do the interview.
471. 16:31And here we have a bunch of different
472. 16:33options. And number one is Codex runs my
473. 16:36app business because Paul has built a
474. 16:38lot of iOS and Mac apps using Codex. So,
475. 16:42that's the main topic, right? And based
476. 16:44on that, it went off and wrote a
477. 16:46complete guest-facing draft guide right
478. 16:49here. So, you can see here that there's
479. 16:50a welcome, there's questions that I
480. 16:52should ask, there's sample answers,
481. 16:54and so on and so forth.
482. 16:56Normally, I would go back and forth with
483. 16:57this a couple of times to make sure that
484. 16:59it's actually good and apply my taste
485. 17:00and style to it. But, in this case, I
486. 17:03just asked it to go ahead and add it to
487. 17:05this Google document. So, let's open a
488. 17:07Google document now.
489. 17:08As you can see here, that now I have a
490. 17:10full interview guide for Paul that I can
491. 17:12actually share with him, which is
492. 17:13incredibly useful.
493. 17:15So,
494. 17:16where am I going with all this?
495. 17:17Basically, pretty much every single week
496. 17:20I have one or two or three podcast
497. 17:24interviews that I have to prepare for.
498. 17:26And this is how you get Codex to do work
499. 17:28for you proactively, right? So, down
500. 17:30here I have a prompt saying "Schedule a
501. 17:32task to run every Friday at 7:00 a.m.
502. 17:35And this time we're going to merge all
503. 17:37the email and calendar workflows that I
504. 17:39just showed. So, number one, check my
505. 17:41past three days of email and list the
506. 17:43top five open action items and the
507. 17:45emails to unsubscribe from.
508. 17:47And number two, check the next seven
509. 17:48days of calendar events. And if you find
510. 17:51a podcast episode, it should say
511. 17:53"Podcast between Peter and X", then run
512. 17:56the skill and create and link the docs
513. 17:59for each episode. And also check for
514. 18:01other important meetings that I should
515. 18:03prep for." So, basically, created this
516. 18:05scheduled task. And let's open it here.
517. 18:08I can see here there's a bunch of
518. 18:09description and so on and so forth that
519. 18:12Codex came up with.
520. 18:13And if we go here to the schedule page,
521. 18:16you can see that there is an active
522. 18:18Friday chief of staff brief that we just
523. 18:21scheduled. And I have some other things
524. 18:22here to clean up my local downloads
525. 18:24folder and get some funnel data and so
526. 18:27on and so forth.
527. 18:28So, let's go back to our chief of staff
528. 18:29thread. And I just want to emphasize,
529. 18:31people who are really good at using
530. 18:33Codex, they have a ton of scheduled
531. 18:35tasks going. Right now, we have
532. 18:37scheduled a weekly task, right? I've
533. 18:39talked to folks on the Codex team, they
534. 18:41have pretty much daily scheduled tasks
535. 18:42going that look at their Slack, their
536. 18:45emails, Granola transcripts, and more,
537. 18:48and trying to help them prioritize and
538. 18:49figure out what they should be doing.
539. 18:50So, this saves them a lot of time from
540. 18:52having to check five different apps to
541. 18:54get the enough context to figure out
542. 18:56what they should do next. So, definitely
543. 18:58make use of scheduled tasks. It's
544. 19:01incredibly valuable.
545. 19:03So, basically, the lesson here is after
546. 19:05you do the manual work of Codex, right?
547. 19:07We did the manual work to check your
548. 19:09emails, find action items, check your
549. 19:11calendar events, we gave it some
550. 19:12feedback. After you do this manual work,
551. 19:15usually what you want to do is ask Codex
552. 19:17to schedule a weekly task, a daily task,
553. 19:19or even a monthly task so that it can do
554. 19:22this work more proactively in the
555. 19:24future.
556. 19:25Okay, now let's talk about using Codex
557. 19:28from your phone because we often have to
558. 19:30manage our emails and calendar there,
559. 19:33and we also are often on the go. So, to
560. 19:35get access to Codex from your phone,
561. 19:37just open the ChatGPT app like I have
562. 19:39here
563. 19:40and click this thing
564. 19:41and then go to remote.
565. 19:44So, remote is basically all your Codex
566. 19:46threads, and it basically talks to Codex
567. 19:49through your computer. So, there's a
568. 19:51really big catch here, which is your
569. 19:53computer has to be on for all these
570. 19:55remote threads to actually work. So, how
571. 19:58do you keep your computer on if you're
572. 19:59not around?
573. 20:01Well, the way I do it is I basically
574. 20:03have this app installed on my Mac called
575. 20:06Amphetamine.
576. 20:07And it's a basically a keep-awake
577. 20:09utility, right? So, if I open
578. 20:10Amphetamine here,
579. 20:12I'm able to set how many hours and how
580. 20:15many minutes I want the app to stay
581. 20:17awake. So, usually what I do is before I
582. 20:19leave the house, I set the app to keep
583. 20:22my laptop awake for a few hours, so that
584. 20:24even if I'm sitting around watching my
585. 20:26kid at summer camp or doing something
586. 20:29else, I can actually continue to build
587. 20:31and talk to Codex on my phone.
588. 20:35Now, I have to admit that looking at all
589. 20:37your Codex threads on your phone while
590. 20:40you're out isn't really much better than
591. 20:43browsing social media. So, I have to
592. 20:45remind myself, and you guys should do
593. 20:46this too,
594. 20:47to basically go out and touch grass and
595. 20:49just stay focused on hanging out with
596. 20:50your family and friends because
597. 20:52monitoring all your Codex threads and
598. 20:54trying to get your agents to work all
599. 20:55time is very addictive, and I'm not sure
600. 20:58how healthy it actually is.
601. 21:01Okay, so we covered the topics 1 to 6,
602. 21:04but I wanted to save the best for last,
603. 21:06which is how do you build beautiful
604. 21:07websites for free with Codex and
605. 21:10ChatGPT.
606. 21:11So, going back to the app here, you can
607. 21:13see that now Codex has a sites feature,
608. 21:15right? And what this does, it it lets
609. 21:18you publish any kind of website either
610. 21:20to yourself and a few friends or
611. 21:23publicly to everybody.
612. 21:25So, in a previous video, I made a travel
613. 21:28catalog for my upcoming trip to Japan.
614. 21:31And I converted it into a site by just
615. 21:33telling it to, "Hey, make this into a
616. 21:35site." So, let's take a look at the site
617. 21:37now.
618. 21:38Let's open this here.
619. 21:40And it's going to open in Codex's native
620. 21:42app browser. And here is my Japan travel
621. 21:45catalog. Again, it's got the torii gate
622. 21:47at the top.
623. 21:48And it's got all all the places that I
624. 21:50want to go to
625. 21:51down here. You can see how sharing this
626. 21:53is just so much more engaging and
627. 21:55interactive than sharing a list of
628. 21:57bullet points. I can basically share
629. 21:59this with my wife and kids to get them
630. 22:02excited about the upcoming trip.
631. 22:05Another site that I made that I want to
632. 22:06show you guys is a safari math game to
633. 22:10learn the multiplication tables, right?
634. 22:13But so I'm trying to teach my kid the
635. 22:15multiplication tables, and we basically
636. 22:17live coded this game together. She's
637. 22:19super into animals. So, basically the
638. 22:21way the thing works is you answer the
639. 22:23right question and it will show some
640. 22:25confetti, and it will ask you more
641. 22:26questions,
642. 22:28and so on and so forth. And I can tell
643. 22:30you guys that like she's much more
644. 22:31interested in playing this game than
645. 22:33just like learning multiplication from a
646. 22:35standard math homework sheets.
647. 22:37I think we built this app maybe a week
648. 22:38ago, and by now she's memorized most of
649. 22:41our multiplication tables, and I think
650. 22:43it's thanks in huge part to this app.
651. 22:46So, definitely build fun sites and apps
652. 22:48with your kids using ChatGPT. It's
653. 22:50actually incredibly simple. Just tell
654. 22:52Codex and ChatGPT, "Hey, I want to build
655. 22:55a fun animal website to learn the
656. 22:57multiplication tables. Make it visually
657. 22:59interesting."
658. 23:00And go ahead and do it. And that's
659. 23:02pretty much all you need with GPT-5.6 to
660. 23:04build something like this.
661. 23:06All right, let's look at one more site
662. 23:08before we finish,
663. 23:10which is this tastemaker plan. So, let's
664. 23:13open it here.
665. 23:14I've spent more than a decade working as
666. 23:17a product leader, and during that time
667. 23:19I've written a lot of PRDs and specs in
668. 23:22Google Docs, right? And I've learned to
669. 23:25keep them short because engineers don't
670. 23:26like to read a lot of words.
671. 23:28But, the reality is that people don't
672. 23:30read them still.
673. 23:31So, what's much more interesting, I
674. 23:33think, is an interactive site they can
675. 23:35click through to understand what the
676. 23:37product requirements are.
677. 23:38So, this is a new kind of PRD that I'm
678. 23:40working on. This is a tastemaker website
679. 23:42that lets you basically add movies, TV
680. 23:45shows, video games, board games, and
681. 23:47more
682. 23:48to curate your taste and share with
683. 23:50other people. So, this PRD has three
684. 23:53different tabs. It's got the product
685. 23:54requirements, the user problem, the
686. 23:56goal, the solution, and the individual
687. 23:58user stories.
688. 24:00And it's also has the design. So,
689. 24:03design, in this case, is the design
690. 24:05principles, the style guide, and very
691. 24:09importantly, the actual component
692. 24:11library, the actual components that you
693. 24:12should use.
694. 24:13And what I found is that coming up with
695. 24:15the style guide and component library
696. 24:17first before you actually make a ton of
697. 24:20mocks, it's extremely useful to keep all
698. 24:23your designs consistent.
699. 24:25And finally, the PRD also has the tech
700. 24:27stack. So, what kind of tech we're going
701. 24:29to use and why.
702. 24:31The data schema that we're going to use,
703. 24:32very important because it's very hard to
704. 24:34change the data after you go public.
705. 24:37And different trade-offs that we made.
706. 24:39And perhaps most hilariously is both
707. 24:42GPT-5.6 and cloud models keep saying
708. 24:45that it's going to take like two or
709. 24:46three weeks to build this stuff, when in
710. 24:48reality it only takes five or 10 minutes
711. 24:50to do it. So, I don't really know why it
712. 24:52keeps trying to output, "Hey, it's going
713. 24:53to take a long time." It's trying to
714. 24:54lowball me in its estimates. I think at
715. 24:57point I'm going to open source this new
716. 25:00PRD format. Talking to your friends at
717. 25:02OpenAI and Anthropic,
718. 25:05a lot of them have basically switched
719. 25:06over to using HTML
720. 25:08for team review of plans instead of
721. 25:12using markdown files or using Google
722. 25:13Docs. And both companies are also
723. 25:15building features like artifacts and
724. 25:17sites to make reviewing and sharing and
725. 25:20commenting on these HTML artifacts a lot
726. 25:23more intuitive and engaging. So, I'm
727. 25:25really excited for that. So, that was a
728. 25:27bit of a digression. The point is make a
729. 25:29lot of sites, share them with your
730. 25:31friends and family, or make them public.
731. 25:33It's probably the easiest way, in my
732. 25:34opinion, to just get a web page online.
733. 25:38And I should definitely try it out.
734. 25:39All right, guys. So, we just covered a
735. 25:41lot. I want you to remember seven action
736. 25:44items from this video.
737. 25:46Number one, if you haven't already,
738. 25:48download the ChatGPT desktop app. If
739. 25:50you're still using ChatGPT on the web,
740. 25:53the desktop app
741. 25:54is the biggest upgrade that you can do,
742. 25:56because now ChatGPT and Codex can
743. 25:58actually do stuff and help you get work
744. 26:00done.
745. 26:01Number two, if you're confused by all
746. 26:02the different model options, which is
747. 26:04extremely confusing,
748. 26:06just stick with GPT 5.6 Soul with medium
749. 26:09effort.
750. 26:10As we saw from that chart, it gives you
751. 26:12strong enough results without burning
752. 26:14through all your tokens at once.
753. 26:16Switch to high effort if you need to do
754. 26:18heavier planning
755. 26:19or maybe like a longer build. But
756. 26:21generally, medium effort on Soul works
757. 26:23perfectly fine.
758. 26:25Number three, personalize your custom
759. 26:27instructions, right? Tell ChatGPT how
760. 26:30you want it to respond.
761. 26:31Mine says to be concise, to avoid AI
762. 26:33slop, to challenge me when needed, and
763. 26:36explain technical concepts in plain
764. 26:38language so that I can learn while I'm
765. 26:40building.
766. 26:42Number four, install plugins for the
767. 26:44apps that you use every day. This is
768. 26:46extremely important. Start with Gmail,
769. 26:48Google Calendar, documents,
770. 26:50presentations, spreadsheets, and Google
771. 26:52Drive.
772. 26:53And add tools like Slack and Granola if
773. 26:55you use them. The more plugins you
774. 26:57install, the more capable Codex and
775. 26:59ChatGPT becomes.
776. 27:01Okay, number five. There's different
777. 27:03ways to organize your threads, but I
778. 27:05think one of the first threads that you
779. 27:06should start is a chief of staff threads
780. 27:09that can help you manage your emails and
781. 27:12your calendar.
782. 27:14And we covered how you can use it to
783. 27:16basically find action items and emails
784. 27:19to unsubscribe from,
785. 27:21and also plan for upcoming meetings, and
786. 27:24even draft stuff in Google Docs to help
787. 27:26you prep for a meeting. And most
788. 27:28importantly, we talked about how to get
789. 27:30Codex to do work proactively for you
790. 27:33by just scheduling a bunch of tasks, for
791. 27:35example, to run every week or even to
792. 27:37run every day.
793. 27:39Number six, we talked about using Codex
794. 27:41from my phone. If I'm honest, I think
795. 27:43about half of my Codex usage actually
796. 27:45comes from my phone, and I rely on this
797. 27:47app that I shared called Amphetamine,
798. 27:49and again, I'll put it in the
799. 27:50description, to keep my laptop on so
800. 27:53that Codex can continue working.
801. 27:55And finally, we talked about building
802. 27:57and publishing sites, such as a travel
803. 27:59guide, a learning game with your kid, or
804. 28:02even a product plan.
805. 28:04Stuff that's interactive and visually
806. 28:05engaging that people actually want to
807. 28:07read and consume. And you don't have to
808. 28:09be a developer to learn all this stuff,
809. 28:11you just have to ask ChatGPT or Codex to
810. 28:13just build a website for you and
811. 28:14describe it.
812. 28:16And as usual, I'm going to include all
813. 28:18the prompts that I used in this video in
814. 28:20the first comment below. So, I hope you
815. 28:22enjoyed this completely free tutorial.
816. 28:24If you want to go deeper, I have all my
817. 28:27best AI skills and courses on
818. 28:29behindthecraft.com.
819. 28:31So, check it out. I'm also building a
820. 28:33complete Codex course with a lot more
821. 28:35detail and my complete personal OS setup
822. 28:39that I'll share later this summer.
823. 28:42As always, I hope you appreciate no
824. 28:44tutorials like this, and please
825. 28:46like and subscribe if you enjoyed this
826. 28:48video,
827. 28:49and I'll see you next time.