Top 5 Things You Can Do with AI Today
You have access to ChatGPT through your BYU-Idaho CES Edu license. Maybe you have logged in once or twice, typed a question, and thought "that was fine, I guess." Or maybe you have not logged in at all. Either way, this article is for you. These are five practical things you can do with ChatGPT right now, today, with no special setup and no technical background required. Each one can save you real time on work you are already doing.
1. Summarize a Document
Reading a 30-page policy draft or a dense committee report takes time. ChatGPT can read it for you and pull out the key points in seconds.
Click the attachment icon in the ChatGPT message bar and upload your file. ChatGPT accepts PDFs, Word documents (.docx), PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, plain text files, and CSVs. Individual files can be up to 512 MB, though OpenAI recommends keeping files under 25 MB for the most reliable results.
Once the file is uploaded, tell ChatGPT what you need from it.
Try this prompt:
I've attached BYU-Idaho's updated travel reimbursement policy. Summarize the key changes from the previous version, focusing on what employees need to do differently when submitting travel requests.
Tips for better results:
Tell ChatGPT what to focus on. "Summarize this" is fine, but "Summarize this with a focus on action items for department chairs" gives you something you can actually use. If the document is long, ask ChatGPT to organize the summary by section or by topic so you can scan it quickly.
Also, keep in mind that ChatGPT does not have access to previous versions of a document unless you upload both. If you want a comparison, attach the old version alongside the new one.
2. Take Meeting Notes
You just finished an hour-long department meeting. You have a rough sense of what was discussed, but the specifics are already getting fuzzy. ChatGPT can help you turn scattered notes (or a full transcript) into something organized and useful.
If you have a transcript from Zoom or Teams, paste it into ChatGPT or upload it as a file. If you took rough notes by hand, type or paste those in. ChatGPT can work with either format. If you use the ChatGPT macOS app, it also has a built-in Record mode that can transcribe meetings directly (up to 120 minutes per session), though this feature is currently macOS only.
Try this prompt:
Here are my rough notes from today's department meeting. Organize them into a clean summary with three sections: decisions made, action items (with who is responsible), and topics that need follow-up. Keep it concise enough to send in an email to the team.
Tips for better results:
The more context you give, the better the output. If your notes are shorthand ("budget, talked about cuts, Jana will follow up"), ChatGPT will do its best, but it can only work with what you provide. Adding names, deadlines, or context ("Jana will follow up with the provost's office by Friday") produces a much more useful summary.
If you are working from a transcript, ask ChatGPT to ignore filler and small talk and focus on substantive discussion. Transcripts tend to be noisy, and a focused prompt cuts through it.
3. Review and Revise an Email
You have written a reply to a student who missed a deadline, and you are not sure if the tone is right. Or you need to send a request to another department and want it to sound professional without sounding stiff. ChatGPT is good at this.
Paste your draft into ChatGPT and tell it what you want adjusted. You can ask it to make the tone more formal, more empathetic, more concise, or more direct. You can also ask it to check for grammar and clarity at the same time.
Try this prompt:
Here is a draft email I wrote to a student who is asking for a grade change. I want the tone to be empathetic but firm. The answer is no, but I want the student to feel heard. Please revise it and point out anything that might come across as dismissive.
Tips for better results:
Be specific about the tone you want. "Make this sound better" gives ChatGPT very little to work with. "Make this more concise and direct, but keep a warm tone" is much more useful. If you have a particular audience in mind (a student, a supervisor, an external partner), mention that. ChatGPT adjusts its suggestions based on who you say you are writing to.
One important habit: always read the revised version carefully before sending. ChatGPT does not know the full context of your relationship with the recipient, your department's communication norms, or the history behind the email. It produces a strong starting draft, but the final version should still sound like you.
4. Plan Your Day
It is 8:00 AM and you have a packed schedule: two meetings, a stack of grading, three emails that need responses, a report due by end of week, and office hours in the afternoon. You know you will not get to everything. ChatGPT can help you think through what matters most and build a realistic plan.
This is not about handing your calendar to an AI. It is about using ChatGPT as a thinking partner to organize your priorities and spot conflicts you might miss when you are just staring at a to-do list.
Try this prompt:
Here is what I need to get done today: attend a curriculum committee meeting at 10 AM (1 hour), grade 15 student essays, respond to three emails from colleagues about a project deadline, finish a draft of the annual program review (due Friday), and hold office hours from 2 to 4 PM. I also want to leave by 5. Help me build a realistic schedule for the day, and flag anything I probably will not have time for.
Tips for better results:
Include time estimates if you have them. "Grade 15 essays" could mean two hours or four, and ChatGPT does not know which unless you tell it. Also mention any hard constraints: meetings you cannot move, deadlines that are today versus later this week, or tasks you can delegate. The more realistic your inputs, the more useful the plan.
If the plan ChatGPT gives you feels too ambitious, say so. Ask it to reprioritize with the assumption that you will only get to 70% of the list. That kind of back-and-forth is where this gets genuinely useful.
5. Clean Up a Vague Prompt
This one is a bit meta, but it matters. If you have tried ChatGPT and felt like the results were mediocre, the problem might not be the tool. It might be the prompt. Vague or overly broad prompts produce vague and overly broad responses. The good news is that ChatGPT itself can help you write better prompts.
Take a prompt you have tried (or one you are thinking about using) and ask ChatGPT to improve it. It will add specificity, structure, and context that you may not have thought to include.
Try this prompt:
I want to use ChatGPT to help me write a training document for new employees in my department. Here is the prompt I was going to use: "Write a training guide for new hires." Can you improve this prompt so I get a more useful result? Ask me any clarifying questions you need before rewriting it.
Tips for better results:
The key phrase in that prompt is "ask me any clarifying questions." This turns a one-shot interaction into a conversation. ChatGPT will ask what department, what the new hires need to learn first, what tone you want, how long the document should be, and other details that make the final output dramatically better.
You can use this technique for any prompt that is not giving you good results. Paste in the prompt, tell ChatGPT the output was not what you wanted, and ask it to help you rewrite the prompt itself. Over time, you will start to notice the patterns (specificity, audience, format, constraints) and write stronger prompts on your own.
Getting Started
If any of these caught your attention, try one today. Pick the task that is closest to something already on your to-do list, open ChatGPT, and give it a real prompt with real context. The best way to learn what AI can do for your work is to use it on actual work.
For a full walkthrough of how to access ChatGPT and the other approved tools at BYU-Idaho, see the Getting Started with AI guide.