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ChatGPT Projects: Organize AI, Get More Done, & Join The Pros
656 Plays14 days ago
Get your BOPA Guide to grow through other people's audiences: https://danchez.com/bopa
In this AI marketing podcast episode, Dan Sanchez walks through the September 2025 overhaul of ChatGPT Projects and shows how to use folders, files, and per‑project instructions to turn ChatGPT into a reliable second brain. You’ll learn when to use “Project‑only” memory (goodbye cross‑project bleed), how to set up instruction docs, and real‑world ways to run content, client, and personal workflows faster—plus a peek at my LinkedIn Post Project that turns one idea into three posts.
My Favorite AI Tools
• Tella (AI screen recording app I record all my solo episodes with) - https://danchez.com/tella
• High Level (My all in one marketing platform) - https://danchez.com/highlevel
• Zencastr (Best AI podcast tool) - https://danchez.com/podtools
• n8n (my favorite AI automation tool) - https://danchez.com/n8n
Resources Mentioned
• Solo Scaled (my company) - https://soloscaled.com/
• LinkedIn Instapost - https://danchez.com/instapost
• Smack - https://smack.fm/
Timestamps
• 00:00:00 — Hook: ChatGPT Projects just got a major overhaul; access changes.
• 00:00:24 — What Projects are: folders that organize conversations (and more than that).
• 00:03:00 — Pro tip: drag old chats into the right Project; add to Project via the ••• menu.
• 00:04:12 — Why Projects matter: shared context across conversations inside a Project.
• 00:05:59 — Memory 101: account‑wide memory vs. Project memory; the old “bleed‑over” problem.
• 00:06:45 — New setting demo: choose “Default memory” vs. “Project‑only” (two‑way barrier).
• 00:07:56 — Add Files: keep PDFs/docs/sheets as always‑available context for every chat in the Project.
• 00:09:16 — Edit Instructions: write purpose, principles, baselines; use markdown or plain text.
• 00:11:57 — Use cases: Projects for channels (AI‑Driven Marketer), brands/clients, and life areas.
• 00:13:30 — Wellness Project example: goals, nutrition, guidance—why context boosts advice quality.
• 00:16:18 — LinkedIn Project: one idea → three post variants (long, concise, spicy) on command.
• 00:17:32 — CTA: grab the “instapost” instructions guide to clone the LinkedIn workflow.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to ChatGPT Projects Update
00:00:00
Speaker
ChatGPT projects just got a major overhaul and the sad part about it is almost nobody knows about it because very few people know about this powerful tool right within their ChatGPT accounts.
00:00:12
Speaker
Now to be fair that's because only Plus and Pro users had access to that but that's all about to change. In this video I want to show you how to leverage this powerful tool within ChatGPT
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome back to the AI Driven Marketer. I'm Dan Sanchez. My friends call me Danchez. And today i want to show you one of my favorite tools because this has been an awesome tool since it came out last December. hasn't even been out for a year yet.
00:00:41
Speaker
And they're dropping a major upgrade here in September of 2025.
Podcast Accessibility and Resources
00:00:45
Speaker
So if you're new to this, I want to be sharing my screen to kind of give you an overview of what projects is, talk about how I'm using it, and then show you a quick demonstration of how to set up the project instructions so you can become a power user of it very quickly.
00:01:01
Speaker
If you're listening to the show, just know that this is a video podcast. I will be demonstrating this, but also talking through it. So if you're listening while you're driving the car or doing a workout or something, you'll still be able to get the gist of it as we move along.
00:01:14
Speaker
But you can watch it in Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and on my website at danchez.com. Everywhere else, it's probably going to be audio. But the video is plentiful and everywhere. So if you want to tune in and see what I'm doing, just open up that screen and take a look.
00:01:30
Speaker
Hey, just quick
Leveraging Audiences for Lead Generation
00:01:31
Speaker
interruption. This is Dan here. And I just want to apologize because I've never shared this resource with you. It's from a good friend, Brian, and he created a fantastic resource that has brought him a high ticket a customer every week for the last 52 weeks.
00:01:45
Speaker
The first time I saw it, I couldn't believe how simple it actually was to implement. And I'm using it even in my own business now. And it's a tool around how to leverage not your own audience, but other people's audiences in order to generate leads and get clients.
00:02:00
Speaker
So I want to share this research with you. He breaks it down in exact detail so that you can actually learn how to leverage the audiences of other people like I am today. Go to danchez.com slash Bopa, B-O-P-A in order to get access to Brian's resource and guide on how to leverage partnerships and other people's audiences in order to generate high paying ticket clients now. Again, that's danchez.com slash B-O-P-A.
Migrating and Organizing with ChatGPT
00:02:27
Speaker
So I'm looking at my own ChatGPT account, and I am migrating from one I've been using for years to a new ChatGPT account. That is kind of an episode for another day. um But you can see over on the left-hand side of my screen, we have all the different things we have like in the menu of ChatGPT. We've got new chat, search chat, library for all the images, codecs, which nobody here who's listening to this uses that, Sora, which is the video platform. We have GPTs.
00:02:55
Speaker
I've covered that many videos in the past about how to get started with custom GPTs. That's also just a plus and pro feature and unless you're using somebody else's custom GPTs. And then we have this new thing, or at least it's new for you if you've been on a free account. If you've been on a plus account, you've had this here for since December.
00:03:14
Speaker
ah But it says it's got a little folder icon and it says new project. If you have existing projects, all your projects are underneath that. And the cool thing is they're essentially little folders for organizing conversations.
00:03:27
Speaker
But there's so much more than that, though they are useful just for that. You can see I have a folder open for Solo Scaled, my company where I help solopreneurs grow their audience and reach online through a podcast.
00:03:40
Speaker
um And I have a bunch of different conversations that I've had there. And you can see that they're all grouped within Solo Scaled. And that's really useful because let's be honest, we've all lost the conversations before. We're like, what was that thing that I had going on with ChatGPT? It was from weeks ago, months ago, but I can't find it.
00:03:57
Speaker
It's a lot easier now if you could just keep it organized in the folder that it should be going in.
Utilizing Project Folders
00:04:03
Speaker
So I've been using folders like these these project folders to organize different parts of my life, whether it's for SoloScale, this show, the AI-driven marketer.
00:04:12
Speaker
have a whole folder just for my fitness life and nutrition ah to keep all those organized in one spot. I have a whole folder just for LinkedIn posts. Now, later on in this conversation, I'm going to be talking about how I'm using it for all these different things. But just to kind of give you an idea, it's it's a way to organize the different areas of your life that you're having frequent conversations with.
00:04:32
Speaker
And it's helpful for that. But that's not the only thing that it's helpful for. ah One quick side note, though. If you've had conversations with like Vanilla Chat GPT, you could always find them back here and say, let's see, AI tool usage. I'm just going to go ahead and take...
Managing Memory in ChatGPT Projects
00:04:48
Speaker
Nope, this was from a custom GPT.
00:04:50
Speaker
You could take past
00:04:54
Speaker
conversations you've had and drag and drop them into folders. If you had you're like, oh, this should have gone in this folder, you can actually drag them and drop them or click on the little dot dot dot icon, hover down the menu and say add to project and then add it later in there.
00:05:09
Speaker
So I don't have any I want to add today. So let's dive into the next aspects of projects that make them awesome. I'm clicking into my AI driven marketer ah conversation. I only have two conversations in here because again, it's a new account transferring a lot of stuff over.
00:05:23
Speaker
um The main thing that makes projects awesome. is that ChatGPT can keep track of the conversations within it. Not only is it helpful for you to keep track of what conversations are happening where, it's also helpful for ChatGPT to keep track of what conversations belong with which ones, right?
00:05:40
Speaker
How to group them together in such a way to be able to leverage information from past conversations in future conversations related to the project. And this is a really important thing. So when you have a com new conversation, you'd be like, hey, refer back to that last conversation or hey, remember when we were talking about this topic?
00:05:57
Speaker
Now you can actually incorporate that into it. Now, ChatGPT as a whole, of course, has account-wide memory now. um which it can retain a summary of every single conversation you've had with it. And of course it has a larger summary of more recent conversations and a smaller summary of ah the conversations you've had with it months or years ago.
00:06:16
Speaker
And that's kind of how it works. Until recently, you they kind of overlapped a little bit. Yeah, ChatGPT might remember a little bit more of the summary from within the project, but it also had some access to summaries from within other projects. And this was kind of a breakdown with projects when they released memory across your whole account. There was bleed over from one project to another.
00:06:39
Speaker
But that's one of the major updates they they just made to it yesterday. That's why I'm recording this video today, is that they now give you the ability to be able to control that. And you can only do it on new projects. So let me
Creating and Managing New Projects
00:06:52
Speaker
show you real quick. I'm going to make a new project and we're just going to call this project test.
00:06:56
Speaker
Oh, you know what, let me let me start over. Let me do new project. I'm gonna call it caught test two. And when you set up the project, there's this little gear icon. has It has a name and it gives you little suggestions of what to name it or whatever. It's like investing, homework, writing.
00:07:11
Speaker
I'm just gonna call this one test two, but there's this little gear icon at the very top. You can now specify whether you wanna use default memory, um which is how projects have been working, where there's overlap or one year project.
00:07:25
Speaker
can access memories from outside the project and conversations outside the project can access the summaries of what's going on within the project. That's pretty useful, especially if you have overlap between it, like I do between the AI-driven marketer and SoloScaled sometimes. And SoloScaled's helping people launch podcasts and AI-driven marketer is my podcast. It's helpful for those projects to blend a little bit.
00:07:48
Speaker
But what if you don't want it to blend? What if you have clients who where you don't want anything else from your other conversations interfering for the instructions you have for your client that you're working on and using ChatGPT to make maybe some of their website material or something like that. ah Now they have this new project only.
00:08:06
Speaker
And that is a really helpful distinction because it actually keeps all the different summaries from past conversations out of the project and keeps all the other conversations happening outside the project from accessing memories within the project. So it's a two-way barrier.
00:08:22
Speaker
It keeps things from leaving and it keeps things from coming in. And this fixes a lot of things for people who manage clients or maybe have different areas of their life that they want to keep very separate. ah It's just helpful for a number of different things. it It fixes a lot of the problems we had with projects before.
00:08:38
Speaker
But you do have to set it up at the beginning. Once you determine one of these things, when you first set it up, it's locked in. So I'm to go ahead and click project only for this one and click create a project. You can see I now have my project test too.
00:08:51
Speaker
And there's no conversations underneath it. But there's a few different things you'd want to keep in mind when you're creating a project.
Enhancing Projects with Files and Instructions
00:08:57
Speaker
And that is you can go over here on the upper right, in the upper right hand side, it has this little button here called add files.
00:09:03
Speaker
This used to be located right underneath the chat window in a new project. There was an add files button. on the left and instructions button on the right. We'll get back to where the instructions thing went, but it's still there.
00:09:14
Speaker
ah But you can add files. You can drag and drop PDFs, docs, spreadsheets, or all kinds of information here so that ChatGPT can have access to it for future reference. It's really nice, especially if you're working on a project like I am with the AI driven marketer, right? have lots of conversation to a chat GPT about this very very show you that you you're listening to.
00:09:34
Speaker
And if I go to that project, you can see i have one file uploaded and it is a personal brand guide for myself. I actually have my own personal brand fairly fleshed out.
00:09:45
Speaker
and Because my personal brand, Danchez, and the AI-driven marketer overlap so much since this is a personal podcast, it references that often when creating new marketing materials for the AI-driven marketer. it's just a helpful thing for it to know what my brand values are, the aesthetics, and all that different kind of stuff.
00:10:02
Speaker
So that's a file it has access to in the files section. It's just a piece of context that can always have access to. But every conversation within the AI driven marketer folder will have access to this one file. You can't have one file and only make it available to one conversation or the other.
00:10:19
Speaker
Now there used to be another piece over that was more easily accessible and they kind of buried this a little bit But it's actually one of the more powerful features within projects so over in the upper right hand corner again that little dot dot dot icon to show you more you can of course go to edit project where you can change the name and Do some other things like pick a different icon or a color for the little icon, um but you have edit instructions and This is the advanced feature that very few people take advantage of.
00:10:48
Speaker
For example, I'm looking at the instructions for the AI driven marketer and it essentially has a bunch, it looks like code, it's actually just markdown, it's just formatted text. Markdown is just kind of like the simple way of saying instead of giving it a header, it has a little like pound pound and then, you know, some other formatting things that help chat to understand how I'm organizing it.
00:11:08
Speaker
But it doesn't even have to be that. You could literally just write the purpose of this project is and then insert your purpose. the instructions are what power the project the instructions are essentially telling and giving context to what this whole project is even about um you don't have to give it instructions it could just have the context from conversation to conversation and have chat gpt figure it out but if you want ai to be a thinking partner if you really wanted to act like a second brain i promise giving it instructions is one of the most powerful things you can do in fact
00:11:42
Speaker
One of the things I try to do within the first conversation of every new project is to have a conversation with ChatGPT about what the instructions should be. So I say, hey, ChatGPT, I'd really like to start a new project about something like, i don't know, my health goals.
00:11:59
Speaker
ask me questions to clarify what my health goals are so we could generate instructions that guide this project. You could see that this is exactly what I did for this, hence all the formatting and different things going on um that power this project. It's all the context around what the AI-driven marketer is and what it stands for so that it can have that every time I submit a new prompt to it, every time we have a new conversation about the show, it has that context available.
00:12:25
Speaker
So I highly recommend that every time you have a new project, a new start a new project within chat GPT, just say, hey, chat GPT, what I want to create instructions so that we have context for everything that happens within this project.
00:12:39
Speaker
Here are the goals. Ask me questions to gain clarity around what they are and then help me turn that into instructions that I can copy and paste into the instructions part of the project.
Practical Uses of ChatGPT Projects
00:12:48
Speaker
will make the project way more powerful even if it's just basic context and a purpose statement to guide ai into helping you accomplish the goals for this project so now that we got the overview out of the way let's talk about how i'm using projects like i've already previewed few a little bit of it before i like the ai driven marketer is a podcast if you have a content channel
00:13:11
Speaker
That's a big deal to you. You should definitely have a project for it as you're talking about new ideas, formatting episodes, changing the theme. I don't know whatever you're having, like have a project for every single major channel, not every channel. I don't have a tick tock project because I'm not ah I don't have a big focus on tick tock.
00:13:28
Speaker
I do for LinkedIn, that's another project I have, and I actually have formatted that project special just, and I'll show you that in a minute, but I actually have a LinkedIn project, so you should have a project if you have a podcast or a specific blog, whatever, if you have a major channel that you're focused on as a marketer, you should absolutely have a project for it.
00:13:47
Speaker
If you have different brands that you manage, you should have projects for each brand. If you're a freelancer or an agency, you should absolutely have different folders for different clients.
00:13:58
Speaker
And now they fix the problem of the bleed over from past conversations or from other clients. You can actually set it to only contain or access memories from within that particular project. So that helps a lot with that.
00:14:09
Speaker
um If you're using this for a lot of personal things, you could set up different areas of your life. Maybe you're focused on your financial goals right now and you're really trying to hammer that home. Maybe you're trying to get rid of debt or you're trying to invest and you're trying to look at trying to grow as an investor.
00:14:24
Speaker
You can make a whole project for that call finance and give it a purpose statement of what you're trying to accomplish there so that every time you're asking questions about different things like I am about fitness. Let me see. I can go over to my fitness tab here and you could see I even have like this. I even had a conversation with this morning about my rowing machine and the intensity of how I'm rowing and if I'm hitting zone two workouts.
00:14:43
Speaker
So I could burn more fat and all that kind of conversations. I was confused about something. So I had a conversation. Nice thing about it is that it has the context for what my fitness goals are because I put it over in the instructions. Again, if I go over to the right-hand side and click edit instructions, you can see I have my wellness project instructions. build a mean You can see the purpose statement is build and maintain a sustainable habit-based help habit hey health system that maximizes daily energy, longevity, and mental clarity all in service of living a God-glorifying life.
00:15:13
Speaker
So that was the purpose statement that I co-crafted with ChatGPT and I have core principles in it. I got a current baseline of fitness of where I'm at, what my my nutrition regimen is, ah my goals and motivation, my guidance for future conversations. That's it. That's a really simple set of instructions that kind of guides all the conversations.
00:15:31
Speaker
So when I'm talking about cholesterol or creatine or anaerobic breakdowns, like it has the context to all of that and all the context from past conversations we've had before in order for it to help help me improve my fitness.
00:15:47
Speaker
So areas of life is a great way to improve how you're using chat GPT, because now you can have all those conversations within one. folder and chat GPT can do a better job of keeping track instead of having them scattered all over the account, you know, where your fitness stuff is mixed in with your marketing stuff, mixed in with that conversation you had about how to handle this, this problematic habit of your, your daughter or something like that, then it's not all mixed in. They're all organized in folders. Helpful for you, helpful for chat GPT to keep straight of your chaotic life.
00:16:17
Speaker
I know it's helpful for mine.
Optimizing LinkedIn Content with Projects
00:16:19
Speaker
So I also have a folder for smack, which is the software company that I'm building to help people distribute their podcasts and one for my LinkedIn posts.
00:16:28
Speaker
And I'm going to finish the conversation with this LinkedIn post because this LinkedIn post project is a little bit different. I actually build this a lot. Like I build a lot of my custom GPT's. and that the instructions produce one thing. They only accomplish one specific thing. I don't have random conversations here about LinkedIn. I don't ask it qua um about if this or that were good.
00:16:49
Speaker
It kind accomplishes one task. Every time I dictate a thought here, it turns it into three LinkedIn posts. And that's what the instructions so told it to do. fact, let me open it up for you and I'll give you a little preview here.
00:17:01
Speaker
It says the purpose. ah so I started this as a GPT. It's now a project, but this GPT exists to take raw ideas, outlines or draft snippets from Dan Sanchez and turn them into polished final LinkedIn ready posts reflecting Dan's distinct style, tone, strategy. It may also suggest images when appropriate.
00:17:21
Speaker
So it actually takes all my my writing style, all the different do's or don'ts that I have for LinkedIn, image styles, workflows and instructions. It takes a raw idea, I give it and then turns it into three different LinkedIn posts, a long one, a short and concise one and a spicy take version of the post and usually pick one of the three and post it to LinkedIn. And that's how this works.
00:17:43
Speaker
Now, if you want to see those instructions because you're like, man, I'd like to have a project that does that. I just toss in my idea or a blog post or something else I've written and have it turn it into three awesome LinkedIn posts.
00:17:55
Speaker
I actually created a guide just for you. If you go to LinkedIn, sorry, if you go to danchez.com slash instapost, and I'll drop a link to this in the description, but danchez.com slash instapost.
00:18:10
Speaker
you will be taken to a page like this one where you can get the exact instructions that power my LinkedIn post project. So you could just toss raw ideas in there and get three professionally formatted ah LinkedIn posts that you can kind of pick, you can pick and then edit and then post to LinkedIn. It helps saves me a lot of time because there is a certain writing style and format that works well for LinkedIn. And I broke it down to three different types so that every idea gets turned into three posts that I can use, or I just pick the winner and post
Exploring ChatGPT Projects for Life Organization
00:18:40
Speaker
that.
00:18:40
Speaker
So that's another way to use these projects is you give instructions that say every time I give you this you do that and that's how this project works for me.
00:18:51
Speaker
There are a ton of different ways to use ChatGPG projects. Hopefully this is giving you an idea about how to use it to organize your life, organize your work, organize your clients, or even come up with tools like my LinkedIn post one, um which I hope you go and grab your copy of it, if even only just to learn how I set it up at danchez.com slash Instapost.