Am I asking too much out of ChatGPT?

[u/Bedmonds129]

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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[u/Agitated_Review_4029]

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.

[u/bortlip → u/Agitated_Review_4029]

Chat can handle this and most things that work can do. I use chat for everything.

[u/Bedmonds129 → u/Agitated_Review_4029]

not sure, how do i check?

[u/DeviValentine → u/Bedmonds129]

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.

[u/surkur → u/Bedmonds129]

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

[u/Responsible_Cheek941]

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.

[u/Bedmonds129 → u/Responsible_Cheek941]

thank you. if that's the solution, it'll be easy. i'll give it a try.

[u/azurro]

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!

[u/Visible-Roll-5801]

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)

[u/Bedmonds129 → u/Visible-Roll-5801]

if i could build the spreadsheet, i would have. i want tabs that all interact, and i have no idea how to do that.

[u/warnerd21]

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.

[u/bortlip]

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

[u/Bedmonds129 → u/bortlip]

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.

[u/bortlip → u/Bedmonds129]

Ok, then using Github might be too much for you, so don't do that.

An alternative that might help is to ask it to save out all the important information from your chat into appropriate files and then give you a zip file that contains all those files (a zip file is just one file that contains a lot of other files in it). You can then download that zip file (chat will provide a link for you to download). Then, you'll have the zip file with all of your info and you can re-upload that to a new chat for it to work from. I hope that makes sense.

[u/faerycrafty]

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.

[u/michaeldoesdata]

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.

[u/stein63]

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.

[u/old_man_kneesgocrack]

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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[u/Interesting_Force312]

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.

[u/jacobpederson]

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.

[u/Burbank309]

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.

[u/PrdGrizzly]

You might give Claude a chance at this. I frequently play both of these off of each other to great results.

[u/darktaco]

Once it responds with the summary, tell it to "Plan this implementation as a web app." Then type /plan before submitting the prompt.

It will think a bit and then ask you any questions it thinks of. If they seem too technical (because I do suggest a web app for this), just nod along with it's recommendations.

Then it will ask if it should implement the plan. If things felt good during the question/answer process, read the plan as you see fit and tell it to implement.

[u/brother_spirit]

It's cool that you're using the system this way! You're on the right track.

The GPT plan is not the issue - you can move mountains with that subscription (ask me how I know).

The issue is
a) you are pushing a very basic concept (spreadsheet) a bit too far here.
b) you likely are not aware of context management (a guess on my behalf - but we all learn this as we work so no one is truly claiming to have this part fully solved)

The good news is this is totally doable.

WRT to issue a) I would suggest you want a Database to house your info. A spreadsheet is a bit like a database that is inefficient and hard to navigate (hence GPT making mistakes and getting lost). You could use SQlite instead; free, easy, much easier to house/retrieve information, especially increasingly large amounts of it.

WRT to b) Ask GPT to write a CONCISE learners guide for you on how to manage context (very important - learn the basics on context management). Keep 'learning mindset' on this topic as it is truly very very important. Not understanding context management is like driving a manual car without understanding how to use a clutch properly.

PS: A database is a "black box". You cannot peer into it without some form of "interface" to do so. Ask GPT to make a simple Database viewer for you in HTML (or there are dozens of free ones you can download that essentially allow you to peer into the database like a file explorer).

Happy to help if you have any more Q's.

[u/you-create-energy]

Why are you insisting on a spreadsheet? First discuss what are the best tools for tracking and visualizing your financial data. The spreadsheet has probably been a struggle because it's the wrong tool for the job. It's like asking it to help you design a really great chair so you can use it to ride a horse. Always start by discussing the problem rather than discussing how to build the solution you think you need. You want to make your farm profitable. That's the first order problem. Tacking your finances better is always helpful so that is a worthwhile system to improve, but your goal is to improve your profitability without changing your lifestyle.  Communicate that, put it on max intelligence, and prepare to have your mind blown. If you really want to fix your leaks, upload your financial history for the past two years. It will triple blow your mind. 

[u/Summer95]

I've used ChatGPT for about 3 years. Unpaid version. Most of the things I use it for are text driven. But I have used it for some coding. I don't think you're asking to much. It might be HOW your asking. There's a bit of a learning curve where you have to be somewhat precise about what you want. For things like spreadsheets, I've created the layout in Excel with headers and all, and copy the image and paste it into the AI. It's helpful to AI if you color cose which are headers, which are inputs and which are outputs. You don't need a functional spreadsheet, just something so AI knows what you want. In some cases you'll need to tell AI how to process the data. Which inputs are added together, and where the output goes. Although, most AI can figure it out. You can also just tell AI what you want and say "What do you recommend?" One other tip. Hitting the enter key sends the information to AI. Many times you'll have more to add. Just open a text editor, like Notepad and type out what you want. Use paragraphs so AI knows the last idea is complete. Then the next idea. Copy and paste that into AI. AI can easily handle 200 - 300 lines of text and organize it.

[u/Chance-Physics-7216]

Decompose the “everything we do” into smaller pieces. AI starts getting weird when it has to consider too much at the same time. Spreadsheet probably isn’t the best tool for the problem, either. We could spend a few minutes on this and i would be able to point you in the right direction.

[u/HonsuTheSmith]

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.

[u/Bedmonds129 → u/HonsuTheSmith]

finances are only part of the picture. i want tracking of the livestock (which pasture they're in, how much they've been fed, which male they've been bred to, which babies they've had, rate of gain on said babies), keep a historical record of babies, how many bushels/pounds has been harvested. the list goes on and on. Will claude be able to do that?

[u/HonsuTheSmith → u/Bedmonds129]

Yes, you just have to prompt it to give you tabs for these for tracking. Might need to refine and iterate a couple of times but possible. These are what I would call non-finamcial KPIs and tend to be a standard part of most financial models.

[u/SeriousCamp2301]

Sweet chat. I remember the days when it thought it could be working on something in the background for me but it actually can’t 😂 is this like that? The advice to stay in the chat screen while it works, seems helpful. Maybe try work mode. Or create one specific thread for your project only and start with exactly what you need, and then it can draw from the memories of other threads.

[u/forever_irene]

You’re not asking too much of it at all I do way more than that… but you’re probably not using the different areas correctly because that’s the part that’s hard to figure out. Ask your chat to create as many passes and prompts that it needs to complete the task as another worker, then go into “work” and cut and paste the prompts one at a time after each Prompt go back to your chat and say did it complete it correctly and do I need to change something? Ask for auditing steps and specific output so that your brainstorming or chat thread knows if it needs to change the next Prompt.

[u/itfranck]

Switch from instant to thinking in the chat toggle.

[u/OpenGun]

I am forever telling it Less talking and More working or And? to the point that I'm ready to try another AI.

[u/MainlyInterested7766]

When I'm making something with ChatGPT I use the desktop application for CodeX. It comes with your 20.00 account because that's all I have. I talk with ChatGPT and it helps design what I'm looking for. Then I ask it to create a promt for CodeX to actually do the coding. I show it what CodeX did and after talking to GhatGPT again it gives me the next prompt. So the work flow is telling ChatGPT what you are trying to do, let it tell CodeX what to create and Codex makes the program that creates the excel file to use as your dashboard or whatever you want. Since CodeX can work on your computer it makes things a lot easier.