New Year's Eve 2022, and turning a messy list into a real plan

The last day of 2022 was quiet on the AI record. No launch, no paper, no big announcement I could find. What it did mark was the end of ChatGPT's first month. Wikipedia puts the release at November 30 and says it reached a million users in five days. Plenty of those people, on this night, were doing the oldest thing people do on December 31: making a list of what they'll do differently next year.

Lists like that are easy to write and hard to keep. Here's how a chatbot can help, and the one way it usually doesn't.

The generic plan problem

Type "help me make New Year's resolutions" and you'll get a tidy list. Exercise more, read more, save money, spend less time on your phone. Each one comes with a few sensible tips. It's the plan for a person who doesn't exist.

That isn't the model's fault. You gave it nothing to work with, so it gave you the average. The good news is that the thing you already have, your messy notes, is exactly the input that fixes this.

Hand over the mess

Don't clean up your notes first. The half-sentences, the "again??", the thing you tried in March that didn't stick: that's the useful part. It tells the model who you are and what's already failed.

Before:
Help me make a plan to get healthier in 2023.

After:
Here are my messy notes about getting healthier. Turn them into
a plan I can actually follow.
- tried gym in jan last yr, quit by feb (too far, 25 min drive)
- like walking, hate running
- work 8-6, kids bedtime 8:30, mornings are chaos
- want to cook more, end up ordering takeout 3x a week
- budget maybe $40/month for this
Give me: one change to start this week, what to add in
February, and what to skip because it won't fit my life.
Keep it under 200 words.

Look at what changed. The model now knows the gym failed because of the drive, so it won't suggest a gym. It knows your evenings are gone, so it won't schedule a 7 p.m. workout. And the "what to skip" line gives it permission to cut, which most plans badly need.

The "start this week" part is the one I'd fight hardest for. A plan that begins with a single small action has a much better shot than one that begins with a vision statement.