11 Super Simple ChatGPT Prompts That Help With Your Daily Work

If you've spent any time using ChatGPT , you know that it often requires lengthy explanations, prompt adjustments, and/or additional context to get what you want. Often, but not always.

ChatGPT is capable of performing useful tasks with simple, one-line prompts. When phrased correctly, ChatGPT will perform the following tasks without hesitation, additional context, or problems.

Find meal ideas from available ingredients

Simply list the main ingredients (and any others) you have on hand and ask ChatGPT for some meal ideas using them. For example, the author of this article asked, 'What dishes can I make with frozen rice, eggs, and mixed vegetables?' ChatGPT suggests egg fried rice, vegetable omelets, and baked egg fried rice muffins, among others. Handy in a pinch!

Troubleshooting

When something goes wrong, your first reaction might be to panic or give up - but you should probably ask ChatGPT for help. ChatGPT can help troubleshoot whenever you encounter an unexplained or unexpected problem.

Just ask ChatGPT to provide a list of troubleshooting steps for any problem that comes up. In this example, the author asked what he could do with a Windows laptop that stopped working - the short prompt "Please list some troubleshooting steps for a Windows laptop that stopped working" returned a list of 10 things to try.

Create custom workouts

The author asked ChatGPT, 'Create a short workout that a 40-year-old can do in their living room .' ChatGPT suggested a 20-minute, low-intensity workout that's a bit challenging but still doable. It's one of the many ways you can use ChatGPT to really improve your life.

Create a comprehensive checklist

Checklists are useful when you absolutely don't want to forget an important step, such as when you're packing for a vacation, hosting a party, or spring cleaning your home. ChatGPT can help by creating checklists for a variety of situations - and for best results, you should include specific details so ChatGPT understands your specific needs.

Explain concepts (as if you were 5 years old)

With just a short prompt, ChatGPT can explain even the most complex concepts in a way you can easily grasp. Want to understand nuclear fission? Or how EV batteries work? Or what kind of technology is used in modern data centers? Just ask!

Summary of online articles

Do you feel like you're overwhelmed with so much information that you can't keep up or absorb it all? You're not alone! There are billions of websites out there – no one has the time or energy to read everything that catches their attention. Luckily, ChatGPT can help by analyzing any online article and highlighting the most important information.

See what happened to a day in history

It's important to not only know what happened in the past, but also understand why it happened. You can dig through encyclopedias and history books yourself, spend years absorbing the knowledge and synthesizing it… or you can use ChatGPT and let it do all the heavy lifting for you.

Answer simple quiz questions

If you often encounter questions you don't know the answer to, don't worry! Just ask ChatGPT to answer those questions for you immediately.

The article is about questions that have definite answers, such as trivia questions. Who won a certain sports tournament in a certain year? What year was a music album released? What is the tallest mountain in the world? And so on. Any question that has an open answer, or multiple potential answers, can complicate matters.

Learn new words every day

Many people enjoy learning something new every day, whether it's practical and purposeful or just fun and trivial. Something that combines both of these extremes is the concept of "daily vocabulary" - and ChatGPT can provide you with a new word every day through a simple prompt.

Combine tasks like these with ChatGPT's handy "scheduled tasks" feature to increase productivity and save tons of time!

Translate simple words or phrases

If you're traveling abroad, you should try to learn a few words in the local language. Sure, most people in the world speak some English, but that's no reason to be lazy! Pick a few good words or phrases and learn how to say them in the language of the country you're visiting - that's what ChatGPT can help you with.

Convert units of measurement

As kids, many people never imagined they'd have to convert one type of unit to another so often - but as adults, they do it all the time. While Google and other tools do a pretty good job of converting all types of units, ChatGPT actually does a better job.

Marvin Fry

Update 22 July 2025