Am I asking too much out of ChatGPT?
My husband and I both work full-time and have a small, but diverse farm. We raise cattle goats and chickens. We raise our own hay, our own oats and our own corn used only to feed said cattle goats and chickens. We accept no government hands outs, and our farm…
My husband and I both work full-time and have a small, but diverse farm. We raise cattle goats and chickens. We raise our own hay, our own oats and our own corn used only to feed said cattle goats and chickens. We accept no government hands outs, and our farm cost us money every month so in trying to get the farm to at least pay for itself, we decided to purchase the $20 level of ChatGPT and ask it to build us a very sophisticated spreadsheet that will help us track everything that we do on our farm in order to try to extract financial data to see how we can improve the finances of the farm been working on this project with ChatGPT for probably three months now I feel like we are getting closer to something that’s usable one thing. I’m very frustrated with is that ChatGPT says it’s going to do something it summarizes everything we just talked about and then never does the actual thing like I have to make it build. The spreadsheet is just too much what I’m asking or is there somehow I can do it better?
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i've looked thru your link and that just confuses me. but i think your correct in that we've gone on so long, it loses previous info. we are in our 50s and 60s, and this is very difficult to navigate.
not sure, how do i check?
if i could build the spreadsheet, i would have. i want tabs that all interact, and i have no idea how to do that.
thank you. if that's the solution, it'll be easy. i'll give it a try.
install the desktop app.. on top center you see chat / work.. from my understanding, its the same guy you are speaking to but different roles. work can actually work on your github and if you switch to codex, it can move files locally. but mind you, work and codex eat away your credits, so be careful and always keep an eye on usage. So, i found a workaround for vhat to directly work on my github and when i need to work on local files i switch to codex. try this and ask gpt..ELI5 whats the difference between chat/work/codex? And which is the best place for the work your are doing.. based on your description, chat should work fine. Having said that... gpt has gone full crazy past week.. i made a few rant posts myself. it constantly breaches protocol, forgets stuff and worse constantly lies. i ask for apple and it brings me sand, tell me it has verified and it is A grade apple. now eat it. its only when i push back it goes, oops sorry my bad.. blah blahblah.. goes on and on with commentary but takes 738584 tries for it to get get back to work.. i liyerally have to say.. stop talking.. just finish the task.. and thrn brings me a fossilized turd and says.. here is you verified tested apple. Now eat it
Use Projects, attach relevant files there, especially include a status file which shows the roadmap and ask the AI to update it as you go. When the AI starts sounding confused, make sure you have the status updated, and then start a new conversation within the project. You can use a second instance as a Reviewer whose job is to check if the main instance is still on track with its job. Do this review before committing any big step. Make backups often.
I don't think you're asking too much, but I do think you're asking ChatGPT to be something it's not particularly good at yet. A single spreadsheet with months of iterative changes becomes a huge state-management problem. The model may understand the goal perfectly, but as the conversation grows it starts summarizing, forgetting details, or saying it will make a change without actually applying it. I've run into similar issues on long creative projects. Breaking the work into smaller, independently verifiable modules (inventory, expenses, livestock, crops, reports, etc.) and then integrating them later has been much more reliable than trying to build everything in one continuous chat.
I've noticed, in the mobile app at least, that work mode can only be accessed in a Project. You create a new project, and there's a little drop down under the project name (you create the name) where you can pick Work or Chat and all future chats in that project will be what you pick, until you change it again. I made a killer job search agent last week. Took my chat about 45 seconds to make it. If you list out exactly what you want and put it in Sources, it will constantly be shown to Work mode to not get off track. Work mode is 1000% superior to chat mode, and I love chat mode. Edit: I also use High intelligence, not Instant or Medium in Work. You might need a highger intelligence because what you want sounds complicated. I'd tell it what you are wanting to accomplish, then see what it suggests.
Chat can handle this and most things that work can do. I use chat for everything.
Are you using chat or work? I lm no expert but the way I understand, Chat comes up with great ideas but work actually implements them.
This is my recommendation. Chat can handle creating and updating your spreadsheet just fine. It is best to have it propose changes to you so you can see what it is doing and make adjustments if necessary. The main issue here is that if you don't understand exactly what it is doing then it can make some bad decisions or drift away from your goal and things can snowball and go down hill quickly. If you need to, discuss what it is doing for a while so that you understand it before you approve it to make those changes. It can also somethings get stuck in loops where it will keep confirming what you want done without actually doing any work. It could be you are stuck in this. Usually it's best to start a new chat if something like that happens (but then you'll need to add your info back into the context so the AI knows it). A bigger issue is just letting the history of your discussion live in just a chat. The chat will eventually get too long and you won't be able to directly reference they things that were already discussed. I think the best way to solve this is to use another place to store all the info around what it is doing, what you want it to do, what has been done, info about your farm, etc. Github is great for this. It was made for code, but can store any documents. So it can store all that info. Then, later, as you have the AI do more work, you can point it at the github info and it can read and use that info. Using github and having chat be able to use it is not complicated. I have chat create a simple beginner tutorial on it that will step you through it if you decide to do that. https://bortlip.github.io/SharedInfo/tutorials/github-chatgpt-setup/tutorial.html
I’m no expert but for me projects of a similar kind ( on a much smaller scale ) are exactly what I do NOT ask chat to do because it’s never done what I want in this regard and ends up being more annoying than anything However, I would use it in this situation to tell it what im aiming to achieve and then have it suggest the best workflow to do so And just by you saying 3 months …. Way too long. 3 days maybe but still that’s a really long time for a tool that’s supposed to make that faster. You could have combed thru all that and done it yourself way quicker than 3 months ( I assume)
I run a ranch and I’ve dealt with this problem many times. I’ve created spreadsheets and apps to help manage operations for over 200 animals, their vet records, and farming. Like other users suggest you can choose from chat, work, and codex. For what you’re trying to do I would use work. But first, copy and paste this: Go over the entire conversation and create a “handoff” for another LLM that includes the spreadsheets current state and any technical details necessary to make the spreadsheet from scratch. Once it generates that handoff, start another instance with ChatGPT work. Paste that handoff into the chat and let it know you are continuing from another instance and to review that handoff. Tell it to do nothing else. Then attach the spreadsheet and tell it to make whatever changes you want and clearly state that you don’t want want it to tell you what it would do, you want it to execute the changes you discussed. Periodically you will need to generate another handoff and start a new instance because your context will fill up and it will feel like it got dumber all of a sudden. To keep track of all that create a project and drag all the conversations into the project folder. I always like to name the chats within the project something consistent and then date them. The last thing in each conversation is a handoff in case I need to start development from there for whatever reason. DM me if you need more help!
If you want a decent spreadsheet model, I suggest you give Claude a spin, especially the Opus 5 model. If you need help, give me a shout. For context, I am a senior finance leader working in PE and use Claude regularly to generate first drafts of financial models. Don't know why but Claude just does spreadsheet based financial modelling better than ChatGPT, though if anyone has tips on how to use Chat to generate better models than Claude, I am happy for any and all tips and guidance.
No, it’s doable, but you’re trying to build an entire farm management system at once. Put the current workbook and a clean requirements list in a Project, then build and test one section at a time: animals, feed, crops, expenses, sales, then reports. Tell it, “Create and return the updated .xlsx now, don’t summarize.” Save each working version, because continuing to patch one three-month conversation is probably creating more confusion than progress.
It’s kinda new for me this week. When it summarizes twice, I know it’s not able to do it, so I ask it to turn it over to a work chat. It transitions, then the work chat clarifies, then does the thing. I haven’t looked into it yet, but the work chats seem “locale”. I’m in the Apple sphere, and work chats on Mac do not show on iPhone or iPad.
Tell or explain to your gpt that you don't need it to summarize anything unless you explicitly tell it to..to just create the spreadsheet how you want it to create it... Telling your gpt exactly what you want works wonders...also, tell it to save your directions to memory or help you write custom instructions to put in the custom instructions area.
You're not asking too much, you are asking for too much at once and not decomposing your problem properly. You need to understand what you need to do, what the general format is, and how you intend to use it. I have built all sorts of stuff with AI including spreadsheets but ultimately you need to be the one pushing it in the right direction.
If I find myself in that situation (not getting what I ask it to do) I ask it to walk me through doing it myself. So you have the vision and you know the "how" is out there. Just use chatgpt to explain how each step should be taken. I hope that makes sense.
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I found out while asking for a document that you have to stay in the chat and actively be working on it. It doesn’t do it after you close out. So while it was summarizing and telling me all the things it was going to do - I finally had to say “stop summarizing; do it like we discussed; and get to writing”. And that’s when it said it couldn’t work alone in the background. So for a week I thought it was working when I’d ask for a status update and it would tell me the things it would do. Try that.
Place your spreadsheet in a directory - (always keep a backup), And use the desktop application to work directly on the sheet https://openai.com/index/introducing-the-codex-app/ Tell it to create an agents.md file to keep track of the rules.
My feeling is that for something like that, an application is closer to what you need. The models are very capable writing apps, probably more than creating spreadsheets. Even if you don‘t know how to write an app, you might try and see how far you get.
You might give Claude a chance at this. I frequently play both of these off of each other to great results.