Using ChatGPT to get unstuck

The most useful thing about ChatGPT, for me, has nothing to do with automation or efficiency. It's about getting unstuck.

I don't mean "stuck" in the vague productivity-guru sense. I mean the specific experience of sitting down to work, knowing exactly what you need to do, and being completely unable to start. The blank page. The email you've been putting off for three days. The project proposal that should take an hour but somehow never gets written.

A thinking partner that's always available

What I've found is that typing my problem into ChatGPT, even badly, breaks the seal. "I need to write an email to a client explaining why the project is delayed and I don't know how to frame it without sounding like I'm making excuses." That's not a sophisticated prompt. But the response gives me something to react to. I disagree with half of it, rewrite the other half, and suddenly I have a draft.

This works for brainstorming too. When I'm planning a feature and can't decide on an approach, I'll describe the constraints and ask for options. The suggestions aren't always good, but they get me thinking. It's like rubber duck debugging, except the duck talks back.

What I actually use it for

Mostly first drafts. The output is never publishable, but I'd rather edit a bad draft than stare at a blinking cursor. Once I have something on the page, even something wrong, I can work with it.

I also use it to learn things. Last week I needed to understand how database connection pooling works in serverless environments. I asked ChatGPT, got a decent explanation, asked three follow-up questions, and had a working mental model within 20 minutes. Would have taken me an hour of tab-hopping otherwise. I still double-check anything I'm going to act on, but as a starting point it's fast.

And sometimes I just need to think out loud. I'll describe a problem I'm stuck on, and halfway through typing the message I realize I already know the answer. The AI's response is almost beside the point - the act of explaining the problem to something forced me to organize my own thoughts.

The limits

It doesn't know my situation. It doesn't know my codebase, my team, my deadlines, or the politics of why a decision got made the way it did. So it gives generic answers when I need specific ones. I've gotten burned a few times taking its suggestions at face value instead of treating them as rough material to work from.

Honestly, most of the value comes from me having to think clearly enough to ask a question. The AI is almost incidental to that.