# How do memory and custom instructions change the 'prepare ChatGPT first' step?

Date: 2024-05-07 · Author: Robert Scales · https://guidetoartificialintelligence.com/en/learn/memory-custom-instructions-change-prepare-chatgpt-first/

**Answer:** They take over the parts of the preparation that never change: custom instructions hold your standing role and preferences, and memory keeps useful facts ChatGPT learns from your chats. Your opening message can then focus on what is new each time, the task, its audience, the material and the format, instead of reintroducing yourself.

*A Beginner's Guide to ChatGPT* asks readers to prepare ChatGPT before the real question: give it a role by naming the expertise you need, explain your own role, industry and task, and say what kind of output you expect, from format and tone to length and level of detail. That advice was written when every conversation started from zero. If you were a teacher, you said so in every chat.

Two features have changed that. Custom instructions, introduced in July 2023, let you save standing information that ChatGPT considers in every new conversation. Memory, which OpenAI began testing in February, reached all ChatGPT Plus users on April 29, except in Europe and Korea, where it is coming later. With both in place, part of the preparation step happens before you type anything. The method is the same; where each piece lives is different.

## Three places for the same information

It helps to think of three layers, from most permanent to most temporary.

**Custom instructions** are two boxes in your settings: what ChatGPT should know about you, and how you would like it to respond. You write them yourself, and they apply to every new chat until you change them. They suit facts that are always true and preferences you always want.

**Memory** is a store of details ChatGPT keeps across conversations. You can tell it directly ("Remember that I write for a nonprofit"), and it can also pick up details as you chat. You can ask what it remembers, tell it to forget something, or switch memory off in settings. It suits facts that build up over time and are useful in many chats, but not all.

**The prompt** is your message in the current chat. It carries everything specific to this task.

## A worked split: a nonprofit's communications coordinator

Here is how one person might divide the book's preparation step across the three layers. The details are made up for this example.

| Book's preparation element | Where it goes now | Example text |
|---|---|---|
| Your role and industry | Custom instructions, box 1 | "I coordinate communications for a small food bank. Our readers are donors, volunteers and local businesses." |
| Standing format and tone | Custom instructions, box 2 | "Plain language, short paragraphs, Canadian spelling. Ask a question if my request is unclear." |
| Ongoing facts learned over time | Memory | "The spring food drive runs in May." "The newsletter goes out on the first Monday of each month." |
| The role ChatGPT should play | Prompt (or box 2 if always the same) | "Act as an experienced fundraising copywriter." |
| This task and its audience | Prompt | "Write a thank-you email to volunteers from last Saturday's sort." |
| Material and limits for this task | Prompt | The real numbers, names to thank, a 150-word limit |

With that set-up, a single opening message is enough:

```prompt
Act as an experienced fundraising copywriter. Write a thank-you email to the 22 volunteers who sorted donations last Saturday. Mention that they sorted about 1,800 kg of food, and thank Marie and Daniel for leading the teams. Keep it under 150 words, warm but not gushing, with a subject line. Before you write, tell me which details you are using from memory.
```

The last line is the useful habit. Asking ChatGPT to state what it is drawing on lets you see whether an old memory, such as a past date or a former colleague's name, is about to slip into your email.

> **Try it:** Open a new chat and ask, "What do you remember about me, and what do my custom instructions say?" Delete anything outdated or too personal, move anything you always want into custom instructions, and remove anything from them that only applies to one project.

## What not to hand over to memory

Memory is convenient, but it is not a filing cabinet you fully control in the moment. It may not have saved something you assumed it knew, and it may keep a detail that has since changed. Don't rely on it for facts where a mistake matters: amounts, deadlines, legal names, medical or financial details. Put those in the prompt every time, and check them in the answer.

Think, too, about privacy. OpenAI says it may use custom instructions to improve its models unless you turn that off in data controls. Keep sensitive details about yourself and other people out of both. For a conversation you don't want remembered at all, OpenAI offers a [Temporary Chat](https://openai.com/blog/memory-and-new-controls-for-chatgpt) that does not use memory and does not appear in your chat history.

## What should you still say in every new chat?

Say what is new: the task, who the result is for and what it should achieve. Custom instructions describe your usual audience, but a board report and a volunteer email need different things, and only the prompt can say which one you want today.

Give the material. Numbers, names, dates, quotes and documents belong in the message itself, pasted in full. Memory might hold a version of them, but you want the current one, and you want to be able to see exactly what the answer was based on.

State the limits and the shape: length, format, tone if it differs from your default, and anything to leave out. The book's advice to be specific about output still applies; the difference is that you only need to mention what departs from your saved preferences.

Finally, keep the book's last two steps, which no setting replaces: refine the answer over a round or two, and verify any fact before you use it. Preparation now takes less typing, but the judgment at the end is still yours.

## Sources

- A Beginner's Guide to ChatGPT: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZRRPXZW
- ChatGPT — Release Notes: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notes
- Custom instructions for ChatGPT: https://openai.com/blog/custom-instructions-for-chatgpt