Exercise 9: Create a Project, Gem, or Custom GPT

Every time you start a new chat with an AI, it knows nothing about you. You have to re-explain who you are, what you need, and how you like things. It's like calling a doctor's office every time and having to repeat your entire medical history before asking a question.

Projects, Gems, and Custom GPTs solve this. They let you create a saved version of an AI assistant that already knows your context — and remembers it every single conversation.

Tool	Feature name	Where to find it
Claude	Projects	Left sidebar → Projects → New Project
ChatGPT	Projects	Left sidebar → Projects → New Project
Gemini	Gems	Left sidebar → Gems → New Gem
ChatGPT	Custom GPTs	Explore GPTs → Create (more advanced, shareable)

Once set up, you open your project or gem instead of starting a regular chat — and the AI picks up exactly where you left it, already knowing your situation.

When it's worth setting one up

The sweet spot is anything you return to regularly. If you find yourself re-explaining the same background more than twice, it's time for a project.

Email Your City Council

Start here

Set up a project that already knows Golden's ward and district structure, the city council website, and your preferred tone. Then drafting a message to your representative takes seconds instead of minutes — and you don't have to re-explain the context every time a new issue comes up.

Health companion

Pre-load your conditions, medications, doctors, and insurance plan. Ask follow-up questions about a diagnosis, prepare for appointments, or understand what a test result means — without re-explaining your history every time.

Family historian

Upload your notes, photos, and family tree information. Use it to write stories about relatives, generate interview questions for a living family member, or organize what you've gathered into something shareable.

Garden advisor

Tell it your location, elevation, growing zone, and what you plant. Get seasonal planting schedules, pest identification, and watering advice that's calibrated to your specific garden — not generic tips from the internet.

Writing coach

Working on memoirs, letters, or a family newsletter? Give it samples of your writing so it learns your voice. It can help you develop stories, give feedback on drafts, and suggest what to write next — all in a style that sounds like you.

Recipe and meal planner

Set your dietary restrictions, household size, budget, and cooking preferences once. Then ask for meal ideas, grocery lists, and recipe adjustments anytime — without repeating "I'm allergic to shellfish and cooking for two" every single time.

Travel planner

Load in your travel preferences — how far you'll drive, your budget range, mobility needs, what you've already seen. Ask for itinerary ideas, things to do in a city, or help comparing hotels with full context about what actually matters to you.

Community organizer

Great for HOA officers, book club organizers, neighborhood volunteers, or anyone who sends a lot of emails on behalf of a group. Set the group's name, your role, your typical audience, and your preferred tone — then draft communications in seconds.

The exercise: build your setup instructions

The hardest part of creating a project is writing the instructions — the paragraph that tells the AI who you are and what you need. Use the prompt below to have AI write those instructions for you.

Prompt

I want to create a [tool] called '[name]' to help me with [use case]. Write the setup instructions I should paste into it — a short paragraph that tells the AI who I am, what I need help with, what context it should always have, and how I want it to respond. Make it specific and practical, not generic.

tool

name

use case

Copy the output and paste it directly into your project's instructions field. Then customize anything that isn't quite right. You can always update the instructions later — a project isn't set in stone.

How to set it up (step by step)

In Claude:

Click Projects in the left sidebar
Click New Project and give it a name
Paste your instructions into the Project instructions field
Optionally upload relevant documents (medical records summary, family notes, etc.)
Start chatting — Claude will use your instructions in every conversation in that project

In Gemini:

Click Gems in the left sidebar
Click New Gem and give it a name
Paste your instructions into the instructions field
Save, then open your Gem to start chatting

In ChatGPT:

Click Projects in the left sidebar
Click New Project, give it a name
Click the settings icon to add custom instructions
Paste your instructions and save

Projects and Gems are private to you — no one else can see them. You can create as many as you like, and delete them just as easily.