Using Projects in ChatGPT: Your AI Workspace for Longer-Form Thinking

by Tom McAtee | 4 Aug 2025 | AI in Practice

Organise, revisit, and build on your thinking

When you’re working on something complex — a strategy paper, a presentation, a research idea — you don’t just need ideas.
You need structure.
You need continuity.
You need a way to return to and build on your thinking over time.

That’s exactly what ChatGPT’s Projects feature enables.

Why Projects Matter

Most people treat ChatGPT like a one-off assistant:
Ask a question → get an answer → move on.

But real work doesn’t happen in one sitting.
It evolves over days or weeks. You think, revisit, revise, and refine.

Projects let you treat ChatGPT as a thinking partner — not just a tool.

Inside a Project, you can:

    • Group related chats together

    • Return to your thinking across multiple sessions

    • Create a coherent thread of ideas, drafts, and decisions

It’s like a folder for your brain — and it changes how you collaborate with AI.

What You Can Do Inside a Project

Each Project becomes its own workspace. Inside it, you can create as many chats as you need — each one focused on a different facet of your work.

For example, if you’re preparing a leadership workshop:

    • Chat 1 – Context and Audience: Work out your objectives, key themes, tone

    • Chat 2 – Outline and Flow: Build the session structure

    • Chat 3 – Drafting Slides or Speaker Notes: Generate content

    • Chat 4 – Voice Mode Brainstorming: Capture spontaneous ideas in your voice

    • Chat 5 – Revisions: Iterate on language or timing

This separation creates clarity. Each chat becomes a building block — not a jumbled thread.

How to Use Projects Effectively

✅ Name your chats clearly

Don’t just rely on memory. Use names like:

    • “Executive Summary Draft v2”

    • “Feedback Synthesis – Research Interviews”

    • “Prompt Testing – CRAFT Examples”

Clear naming = faster thinking.

✅ Start each chat with a short summary

Each chat thread in a Project is still a standalone conversation — so even if you’re working on a broader theme, ChatGPT won’t automatically recall what you said in other chats unless you restate it.

Start each new chat with 1–2 lines of summary, like:

“This continues our work on the leadership strategy memo. We’ve already outlined the key themes and collected stakeholder feedback.”

This simple habit ensures better outputs and saves time in re-explaining.

Pro Tip: Treat every new chat as a fresh start — but give it a short handover note, just like briefing a colleague.

Want to understand how memory works across different AI tools?
Check out our post: Understanding Memory in ChatGPT →
It explains how memory differs from chat history — and why most other AI tools don’t have it at all.

✅ Use each chat for a specific purpose

Don’t try to do everything in one thread. Structure your Project like a set of working notes: reflection here, drafting there, experiments somewhere else.

This builds a rhythm that mirrors how you actually think.

Use Projects to Support Other Practices

Projects are especially useful when paired with other tools from this suite:

  • CRAFT Prompting → Keep a running chat for prompt design, test runs, and revisions

  • Voice Mode → Use Projects to group your spoken idea capture by topic

  • Custom GPTs → Store your outputs and refinements in one place

  • AI Workflows → Treat each step in your workflow as its own chat (e.g. data gathering, sense-making, output generation)

Instead of jumping between disconnected chats, you’ll have a map of your thinking — all in one place.

Suggested Project Types

Here are a few ways to start using Projects:

Project Type Why It Works
Research Project Store data, analysis, summaries, and reflection in one place
Presentation Development Separate chats for structure, slides, storytelling, and edits
Client Briefing Pack Build case insights, talking points, and response scenarios
Strategy or Policy Paper Explore, refine, and redraft across multiple focused chats
Personal Learning Journal Capture lessons, articles, quotes, and reflections by theme

To revisit, not just react. To make your AI partnership more focused, fluid, and effective.

Don’t just ask for answers.
Build a body of thinking.

Suggested Next Step

Start a new Project for something you’re working on right now — strategy, writing, research, teaching.

Give each chat a clear name and purpose.

And see what happens when you make structure part of your process.

Written by Tom McAtee

Curious by nature, grounded by experience – I explore the intersection of AI, culture, and leadership, drawing on four decades in heavy industry and high-stakes organisations. These days, I’m diving deep into research, building tools for thinking, and sharing personal reflections along the way. I also happen to love golf, music, cycling, travel, food – and building elegant things with Divi.

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