On the weekends, I cozy up on the sofa with my espresso, and I depart my telephone in one other room, hoping to achieve my objective of studying one e-book each month. This ritual creates area that is unbound by time and to-do lists — however as my studying checklist grows, I discover myself making an attempt to get by extra pages and extra books.
I wished to see if I may use synthetic intelligence to summarize the primary ideas, classes and knowledge of a e-book I won’t get to for months and even years. Hold the gorgeous prose for the bodily web page, however use AI to summarize nonfiction enterprise books, for instance.
I picked Deep Work by Cal Newport to check run on ChatGPT. After utilizing varied AI instruments, I assumed ChatGPT, one of many best-known textual content immediate chat instruments, would do the job greatest. I even have the $20 a month membership, so I wished to profit from it.
However the mission wasn’t very profitable — partly due to plagiarism protections in-built to the instruments (and rightly so), and partly as a result of it took an entire lot of immediate engineering and impartial analysis to get something value utilizing.
Ponder on the parameters
The very very first thing I discovered was that ChatGPT would not have entry to full manuscripts — to keep away from plagiarism and respect mental property rights — and simply summarizes from current info on-line.
If I’ve discovered something about AI, it is that the preprompt considering is simply as necessary as the primary immediate. I did not simply need an enormous abstract of the e-book. I wished to be taught Newport’s huge concepts, arguments, methods and frameworks relating to deep work, so I may apply it in my work.
So, I began the chat with some expectation-setting.
- First, ask ChatGPT if it has entry to the entire e-book.
- Inform ChatGPT that I would like deep insights, not a superficial abstract.
- Ask for solutions on how you can apply the important thing methods to my freelance enterprise.
- See if it may possibly pull from evaluations and reader commentary for extra shocking and actionable takeaways.
Immediate 1: “Do you’ve entry to Cal Newport’s e-book, Deep Work?”
Not perfect, however I had an thought. I discovered a 6-hour audiobook YouTube clip, so I requested if it may use that to summarize the e-book for me.
However no such luck. It instructed me to look at the video — one other plagiarism safety. Watch a video for six hours? That is hardly time saving.
There are over 32,000 evaluations of the e-book on Amazon, so I assumed perhaps there’s sufficient commentary on the e-book to provide you with an in-depth abstract. So I began over from this angle.
Subsequent immediate: “I have not learn Cal Newport’s e-book, Deep Work. Spotlight the important thing concepts, ideas, methods and frameworks, so I can apply to my enterprise as if I’ve learn it. I do not simply need a abstract of the e-book.”
ChatGPT had a tough time decoding “complete,” spitting out a ton of solutions. It additionally began to offer recommendation with out asking me about my line of labor, like “educate your crew on the significance of deep work and supply coaching on time administration and focus methods” and “allocate devoted blocks of time for deep work in your calendar.” It additionally gave generic solutions like “give attention to duties that present probably the most worth and decrease time spent on low-value actions.”
All fairly vanilla recommendation, in case you ask me. Time to use the stress, one query at a time.
I nonetheless wasn’t getting any breakthrough insights, so I saved pushing.
OK, ChatGPT, off to the Swiss countryside I’m going.
I want.
I requested for an instance of deep work in 2024, and we began to get someplace. I favored one suggestion, about batching shallow work.
Whereas I do that instinctively, it was a useful reminder to batch duties and watch context switching.
Getting Google concerned to maintain ChatGPT on observe
At this level, I used to be utilizing ChatGPT to ask random questions, like if there is a restrict on deep work hours.
It mentioned 4 hours max of deep work per day.
I keep in mind an idea I like referred to as the manager-maker schedule, which particulars the 2 most important schedule sorts. As a author, I am on the maker schedule, which means blocks of uninterrupted time are important.
I needed to do a fast Google search of the important thing classes within the e-book in order that I knew what insights to prod ChatGPT for. Apparently “productive meditation” was an necessary takeaway, so I requested for extra particulars about that.
Lastly, a new idea. Deep work is not simply head down at desk time.
This technique was the unlock — trying on Google for nuggets in summaries, then going again to ChatGPT to increase. When directed, it was nice.
I scanned a second abstract and located one other idea that sounded attention-grabbing: conserving a compelling scoreboard. ChatGPT helped unpack the idea.
The TL;DR?
If you wish to use ChatGPT to study a e-book, you may must spend no less than half-hour searching reader summaries your self and use probably the most attention-grabbing concepts to border your prompts. This inevitably takes a piece of your potential deep work time. You may’t simply ask the AI instrument to do it for you.
When you get heading in the right direction that method, you would possibly uncover one idea that modifications your productiveness or perspective — however ChatGPT nonetheless is not pretty much as good as simply studying the e-book your self.
You even have to think about that since ChatGPT would not have entry to the precise e-book, and solely summaries and evaluations which might be out there on-line, you could not even be getting correct key factors.
And whether or not utilizing an AI abstract defeats the aim of a e-book about deep work continues to be up for debate.
