How ChatGPT Tasks can do the job for you
Datum: 2025-02-03 08:18

Imagine having an AI working in the background for you, delivering valuable outputs exactly when you need them — again and again. Now, it’s possible, though still in a somewhat limited capacity.
For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the “Done!” podcast:
Like having ChatGPT at your back
A few days ago, OpenAI introduced a new feature in ChatGPT called “Tasks” (currently only available in the paid versions of ChatGPT — not in the free version). With this feature, you can ask the AI to perform a task at a specific time in the future or on a recurring schedule, for example, every Tuesday at 3:00 PM.
It can search the internet, generate text using its language model, and create images with DALL‑E, but you can’t upload a document for the AI to process or use as data. Creating a task is simple — type as if you were writing to a colleague, using plain and natural sentences.
What’s the point?
One might wonder what the value of this is. That’s what I asked myself, and I’ve already used ChatGPT Tasks for:
- Presentations on clients’ businesses before personal productivity coaching sessions: When I take on a new productivity coaching client, I must familiarize myself with their company. I ask ChatGPT to prepare a short presentation and send it to me at a convenient time before the session. The information I need is delivered on a silver platter when I need it.
- Reminders of my goals and steps to achieve them: Every morning at 8:00 AM, ChatGPT reminds me of my current goals and suggests one concrete 30-minute activity per goal that I can do that day to work toward them.
- Suggestions for weekend lunch recipes: On Wednesday afternoons, ChatGPT sends me five different lunch recipe ideas for the weekend based on the cuisines we like and our personal preferences.
Can you think of something you could use this feature for?
If so, give it a try!
Do this
If you’re using one of the paid versions of ChatGPT:
- Start a new chat and change the model to “GPT‑4 with Scheduled Tasks.”
- In the usual prompt box, type your request to ChatGPT, including what you want it to do and when you want it done. For example: “On Thursday, January 30, 2025, at 1:00 PM (but not right now), give me a short presentation about the Swedish company NN. I’d like to know a little about the company’s history, where they operate, what they do, and approximately how many employees they have. Use bullet points.”
- ChatGPT will create the scheduled task. Sometimes, it might execute the command immediately (annoyingly!), but in such cases, you can respond with something like: “No, I don’t want you to do this now, but when I asked you to.” It will apologize and create the task as requested.
- To view your scheduled tasks, click on your avatar at the top-right corner when using ChatGPT on the web or in the desktop app and select “Tasks” from the menu that appears. Here, you can adjust the prompt, pause execution, or delete a task entirely.
- When the task runs, note whether it did what you wanted. If it didn’t fully meet your expectations, adjust the prompt for next time and test again!
Get things done without doing them
Using ChatGPT Tasks, you can avoid performing certain tasks yourself. The feature has limited capabilities for now, but this is likely just the beginning. Gradually — and perhaps faster than we expect — ChatGPT will become more capable, allowing us to save significantly more time and effort.
So, learn to create scheduled tasks now, and you’ll be ready to fully utilize more advanced features when they arrive.
What about you?
What have you used ChatGPT Tasks for? Let me know! I’m eager to find more ways to get more done with less effort, so I’d love to hear your tips.
(Looking for more AI hacks? Check out “Learn how to get the AI to write your ALT texts”!)
Want to know more?
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