This text is republished with permission from Marvel Instruments, a publication that helps you uncover essentially the most helpful websites and apps. Subscribe right here.
Bland AI outputs develop stale rapidly. As an alternative of simply dashing 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 individual satan’s advocate assistant
Get considerate pushback on choices. Problem concepts.
The tactic: Use AI as an mental sparring accomplice to stress-test your pondering, discover different views, and determine potential blind spots earlier than making vital choices.
Do that: Current a plan, concept, or choice to an AI assistant with directions to problem your pondering constructively. Establish dangers you haven’t thought of, contemplate secondary impacts, and add nuance to your evaluation.
Get your AI assistant to cease kissing as much as you and begin difficult your concepts. [Generated Photo: Jeremy Caplan/Ideogram]
Immediate template
“I’m planning to [decision/plan] as a result of [reasoning] and with a purpose 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 alternate options ought to I contemplate?
- What dangers may I be overlooking?
- What questions ought to I be asking myself?
- What challenges ought to I anticipate to face?
- What might I do to realize extra perception?
- What might I do to extend the possibilities of success?
Professional tip: Strive asking your AI assistant to role-play. It may well reply as a monetary advisor, member of the family, or competitor, for various viewpoints. Or ask it to behave like an individual you admire, residing or useless, actual or fictional.
Limitation: Your AI satan’s assistant can be generic when you don’t present detailed context. And it’s possible you’ll get a predictable response when 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 effectively. If you happen to’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. When you 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 customized curriculum.
[Generated Photo: Jeremy Caplan]
AI instruments let me check out expertise I assumed I used to be too late to develop, like coding easy purposes, designing graphics, analyzing massive knowledge units, and exploring advanced docs in different languages.
You can even lean on AI assistants that can assist you develop offline expertise, like studying about images, bettering your Greek, understanding crypto, sharpening mission administration expertise, making bread by hand, or prepping for any new protection space for a mission or workforce. AI assistants excel at creating structured studying and apply plans tailor-made to your schedule, fashion, and targets.
Do that: Give an AI assistant context about what you wish to be taught, why, and the way.
- Element your rationale and motivation, which can influence your method.
- Notice your present information or ability stage, ideally with examples.
Summarize your studying preferences
- Notice whether or not you favor to learn, take heed to, or watch studying supplies.
- Point out when you like quizzes, drills, or workout routines you are able to do whereas commuting or throughout a break at work.
- If you happen to recognize studying video games, activity your AI assistant with producing one for you, utilizing its coding capabilities detailed under.
- Ask for particular ebook, textbook, article, or studying path suggestions utilizing the Net search or Deep Analysis capabilities of Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude. They’ll additionally summarize analysis literature about efficient studying techniques.
- If you happen to want a human studying accomplice, ask for steerage on discovering one or language you should use in reaching out.
Add specificity
- Point out any related deadlines. Notice price range, time, or different constraints.
- Share information about your present schedule so the assistant can assist map out optimum studying time slots. Making the plan concrete will increase the chance you’ll observe by. ChatGPT not too long ago generated a calendar file with an inventory of appointments I might simply import into my Google calendar.
Professional Tip: Ask for assist establishing a schedule, setting studying targets, measuring progress, selecting assets, motivating your self, and implementing backup plans if 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 search for, consultants you’ll be able to observe, and methods for avoiding frequent pitfalls.
3. Stretch your inventive design muscle tissue
Do that: Use AI picture era instruments to experiment with visible concepts. Begin with easy ideas and iterate so as to add nuance or complexity. Observe describing visible ideas in textual content, then see them realized immediately and iterate in your prompts.
- Strive MyLens or Serviette for creating thoughts maps, stream charts, timelines or numerous different infographics out of detailed prompts or supply docs.
- Use Ideogram—detailed on this publish—or ChatGPT’s new picture generator—detailed on this publish—to explain any fashion of illustration, infographic or different visible.
- For inventive video era, strive Hypernatural, which helps you to flip textual content into shifting pictures.
Use this to: Add inventive pictures to displays, experiment with social media graphics, or generate infographics for instructing, publishing, or mission work.
Limitation: AI picture mills are bettering quickly however nonetheless battle 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 pictures 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 customized dashboard
Construct customized monitoring instruments and mini-applications
With out realizing something about code, you’ll be able to generate easy net purposes for monitoring something vital to you. Immediate your AI assistant that can assist you maintain tabs on studying or consuming targets, health metrics, mission progress at college or work, or stats for Wordle or your recreation of alternative.
Do that: 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 strive vibe coding instruments like Lovable or Bolt focusing on creating apps and websites based mostly on prompts. For superior initiatives, contemplate Windsurf Cascade.
Professional tip: Plan to iterate. It nearly all the time takes a number of makes an attempt to get one thing workable, since you notice your wants if you see the primary prototype. Begin with easy monitoring earlier than requesting advanced options. Ask for extra performance with follow-up prompts. Right here’a a Immediate Instance.
Limitation: The best variations of those mini purposes work in your browser solely. To make use of an utility 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, strive Lovable, Bolt, or Windsurf.
Instance: I’m engaged on a content material planning and workflow app to prepare and monitor my publication work.
This text is republished with permission from Marvel Instruments, a publication that helps you uncover essentially the most helpful websites and apps. Subscribe right here.
