Instant Inspiration: Using ChatGPT for Fast and Effective Brainstorming

I’ve spent quite a bit of time using ChatGPT over the past several months, and one of the things that has struck me is how good it is at quickly providing a creative brainstorm of ideas. For example, I recently published an article on LinkedIn showcasing ChatGPT’s effectiveness at rapidly generating an email to the Federal District Court in Philadelphia requesting a jury summons deferment. I finished the article and needed a clever headline, and for me, it can take as long to come up with a clever headline as it takes to write the article in the first place! And when I do manage to come up with the idea, it’s typically overly literal versus clever and creative.

No problem! ChatGPT had my back!

I merely uploaded the full article to ChatGPT-4 and gave it the following prompt:

“Act as a headline writer to generate 10 clever and engaging titles for the following article I plan to publish on LinkedIn.”

The instantaneous response was as follows:

1. “AI to the Rescue: How ChatGPT Got Me Out of Jury Duty (Temporarily)”

2. “From Jury Summons to Family Fun: The AI Hack You Need!”

3. “Courtroom Conundrum? Let AI Be Your Legal Beagle!”

4. “Dodging Jury Duty Like a Pro: My AI-Powered Escape Plan”

5. “AI: Making Jury Duty Deferment a Breeze (And Saving My Sanity)”

6. “Jury Duty Dilemma? AI Had My Back in 2 Seconds Flat!”

7. “How AI Helped Me Swap Court for Campus: A Jury Duty Story”

8. “AI Saved My Weekend: From Courtroom to Family Time in No Time”

9. “The AI Lifesaver: Navigating Jury Duty with ChatGPT”

10. “Jury Duty Juggles? AI Made My Deferment Request Effortless!”

Boom! Ten decent ideas to pick from in two seconds, so I can publish and move on to my next project. If for whatever reason I didn’t like one of these, I could pick the one I liked best and prompt ChatGPT to generate five (or 10, or 20, or 50) versions of that headline that are more literal, funny, unexpected, or whatever.

That’s an important tip. I hear people say, “I tried AI but wasn’t impressed with the result.” Just like any assistant, you won’t get exactly what you’re looking for the first time, every time. If the first response is not exactly what you need, just provide a bit more direction as I did above.

In my case, I chose option #1, which I really liked, and published the article. The project is done! Move on! Time is money!

This is a super simple example, but the point is this: AI and ChatGPT 4o, in particular, is a great way to generate ideas if you’re stuck. Even if you’re not stuck, it’s always healthy to stimulate your mind with new “thinking” – you never know where it will take you!

A link to that jury deferment article is here in case you’d like to read it:

AI to the Rescue: How ChatGPT Got Me Out of Jury Duty