This text is republished with permission from Marvel Instruments, a e-newsletter that helps you uncover essentially the most helpful websites and apps. Subscribe here.
Bland AI outputs develop stale shortly. As an alternative of simply rushing up routine duties, what if we used AI to decelerate, problem our pondering, and construct new instruments, dashboards, and experiments? Learn on for inventive approaches which might be altering how I take into consideration AI.
1. Create your personal satan’s advocate assistant
Get considerate pushback on selections. Problem concepts.
The tactic: Use AI as an mental sparring accomplice to stress-test your pondering, discover different views, and establish potential blind spots earlier than making necessary selections.
Do this: Current a plan, thought, or determination to an AI assistant with directions to problem your pondering constructively. Determine dangers you haven’t thought of, take into account secondary impacts, and add nuance to your evaluation.
Immediate template
“I’m planning to [decision/plan] as a result of [reasoning] and with a objective of [objective]. Play satan’s advocate, give me a number of views on this, be daring, shocking, inventive, and considerate in your reply, and handle these questions:
- What are the strongest arguments in opposition to this method?
- What options ought to I take into account?
- What dangers would possibly I be overlooking?
- What questions ought to I be asking myself?
- What challenges ought to I count on to face?
- What may I do to realize extra perception?
- What may I do to extend the probabilities of success?
Professional tip: Strive asking your AI assistant to role-play. It could reply as a monetary advisor, member of the family, or competitor, for diverse viewpoints. Or ask it to behave like an individual you admire, residing or lifeless, actual or fictional.
Limitation: Your AI satan’s assistant can be generic in the event you don’t present detailed context. And it’s possible you’ll get a predictable response in the event you don’t instruct it to be daring.
Prompt mannequin: I’ve discovered ChatGPT 5 to be wonderful for this. Gemini and Claude additionally work properly. In case you’re contemplating something delicate, it’s possible you’ll wish to use a free offline personal AI instrument like AnythingLLM or Jan. I’ll write extra quickly about personal AI instruments like these. You probably have enter on these, add a remark under.
Instance: I described a brand new deliberate morning schedule to GPT 5. The following alternate bought me fascinated about a number of new points.
The dialog helped me make clear my very own pondering. It pushed me to prepare and deepen my very own evaluation. As a bonus, GPT 5 produced a tangible artifact for me—a PDF with tables.
2. Be taught one thing new
Map out a personalised curriculum.
AI instruments let me check out abilities I assumed I used to be too late to develop, like coding easy functions, designing graphics, analyzing massive knowledge units, and exploring complicated docs in different languages.
You too can lean on AI assistants that will help you develop offline abilities, like studying about images, bettering your Greek, understanding crypto, sharpening challenge administration abilities, making bread by hand, or prepping for any new protection space for a challenge or staff. AI assistants excel at creating structured studying and observe plans tailor-made to your schedule, model, and targets.
Do this: Give an AI assistant context about what you wish to be taught, why, and the way.
- Element your rationale and motivation, which can impression your method.
- Notice your present information or talent degree, ideally with examples.
Summarize your studying preferences
- Notice whether or not you favor to learn, hearken to, or watch studying supplies.
- Point out in the event you like quizzes, drills, or workout routines you are able to do whereas commuting or throughout a break at work.
- In case you respect studying video games, job your AI assistant with producing one for you, utilizing its coding capabilities detailed under.
- Ask for particular e book, textbook, article, or studying path suggestions utilizing the Internet search or Deep Analysis capabilities of Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude. They will additionally summarize analysis literature about efficient studying ways.
- In case you want a human studying accomplice, ask for steering on discovering one or language you should use in reaching out.
Add specificity
- Point out any related deadlines. Notice funds, time, or different constraints.
- Share information about your present schedule so the assistant might help map out optimum studying time slots. Making the plan concrete will increase the probability you’ll observe by. ChatGPT lately generated a calendar file with a listing of appointments I may simply import into my Google calendar.
Professional Tip: Ask for assist organising a schedule, setting studying targets, measuring progress, selecting assets, motivating your self, and implementing backup plans once you fall off monitor. Ask for a studying plan you’ll be able to print out, charts you’ll be able to fill in, interactive apps to trace progress, useful resource lists you’ll be able to lookup, specialists you’ll be able to observe, and methods for avoiding frequent pitfalls.
3. Stretch your inventive design muscle tissues
Do this: Use AI picture technology instruments to experiment with visible concepts. Begin with easy ideas and iterate so as to add nuance or complexity. Apply describing visible ideas in textual content, then see them realized immediately and iterate in your prompts.
- Strive MyLens or Napkin for creating thoughts maps, circulate charts, timelines or numerous different infographics out of detailed prompts or supply docs.
- Use Ideogram—detailed on this post—or ChatGPT’s new picture generator—detailed on this post—to explain any model of illustration, infographic or different visible.
- For inventive video technology, attempt Hypernatural, which helps you to flip textual content into transferring pictures.
Use this to: Add inventive pictures to shows, experiment with social media graphics, or generate infographics for instructing, publishing, or challenge work.
Limitation: AI picture mills are bettering quickly however nonetheless wrestle with exact textual content placement, detailed charts, and sustaining model consistency throughout a number of pictures. Most don’t let you choose particular picture dimensions, although Ideogram does.
Examples: I generated the photographs on this publish with ChatGPT and Ideogram, and I’ve used Hypernatural to make video variations of previous posts, like this 2-min video about Raindrop, which I wrote about final week.
4. Create a personalised dashboard
Construct customized monitoring instruments and mini-applications
With out figuring out something about code, you’ll be able to generate easy internet functions for monitoring something necessary to you. Immediate your AI assistant that will help you hold tabs on studying or consuming targets, health metrics, challenge progress at college or work, or stats for Wordle or your recreation of selection.
Do this: Ask AI to create a dashboard or monitoring instrument tailor-made to your particular wants. Experiment with Claude 4 Artifacts, Gemini’s code canvas. Additionally attempt vibe coding instruments like Lovable or Bolt focusing on creating apps and websites based mostly on prompts. For superior initiatives, take into account Windsurf Cascade.
Professional tip: Plan to iterate. It virtually at all times takes a number of makes an attempt to get one thing workable, since you notice your wants once you see the primary prototype. Begin with easy monitoring earlier than requesting complicated options. Ask for added performance with follow-up prompts. Right here’a a Prompt Example.
Limitation: The only variations of those mini functions work in your browser solely. To make use of an software on a number of units, you’ll want to save lots of the code and host it with a service that permits you to create a database. For that, attempt Lovable, Bolt, or Windsurf.
Instance: I’m engaged on a content material planning and workflow app to prepare and monitor my e-newsletter work.
This text is republished with permission from Marvel Instruments, a e-newsletter that helps you uncover essentially the most helpful websites and apps. Subscribe here.
