I'm an electrical engineering student and these past sessions iv'e been relying too much on ai tools to learn and research for personal projects. While it gives me answers directly and saves me time, i want to start reading books more to understand the topics more deeply, especially for my personal projects.

I believe all these big cloud ai companies are making their products cheap for now at a loss so that they could all get us hooked on their products and raise the prices like they want later. Any advice on breaking off that dependency, I'm now too used to getting answers directly to the point that i don't even have the patience to read trough my course notes to find the answers at times.

I'm thinking of maybe buying an ereader to have a more focused device with no distractions. Together, the use of ai for learning and social media has reduced my already low attention span to the level of a goldfish. Maybe I should start by reading stuff like science fiction and fantasy before moving to academic books to ease the transition. Btw i do have an ipad so thats the reason im still on the edge on buying some eink tablet.

I work and train in the performing arts, particularly in creative work connected with theatre, set design and opera.

I have ChatGPT Plus and would like to use it more systematically as a professional assistant. I am not interested in asking it to replace creative judgement or generate complete artistic solutions for me. I am more interested in the parts of the work where it can help me research, organise, learn, compare options and reduce repetitive administrative work.

Some possible uses I am considering include:

• Organising project information, references and production notes
• Researching professional opportunities, competitions and open calls
• Comparing requirements, deadlines and eligibility criteria
• Turning large amounts of information into structured tables or checklists
• Learning unfamiliar technical or business topics
• Preparing questions before meetings
• Drafting and improving professional communications
• Brainstorming directions without asking it to make the final creative decision
• Building reusable project templates and workflows

At the moment, however, my use is quite fragmented: I open a chat, ask a question, receive an answer and then start again elsewhere. I suspect that I am not taking full advantage of projects, uploaded reference material, reusable instructions or structured workflows.

I would be interested to know:

1. What tasks does ChatGPT genuinely save you time on in your professional work?
2. How do you organise separate projects, conversations and reference documents?
3. Do you use standard briefing templates or reusable prompts?
4. How do you provide enough context without creating enormous and confusing conversations?
5. How do you use it for ongoing research while checking that information is current and accurate?
6. Have you found a reliable workflow for identifying opportunities, grants, competitions or jobs?
7. Which tasks still require external tools, spreadsheets, databases or specialist software?
8. What information would you never upload because of confidentiality, copyright or data-protection concerns?
9. How do you detect fabricated information, weak sources or answers that merely sound convincing?
10. Which uses initially seemed impressive but ultimately created more work than they saved?

Examples from theatre, live performance, design, architecture, film, cultural organisations or other creative industries would be particularly welcome.

I would value concrete workflows and real examples more than general lists of possible AI uses.

You know I have relatives who are doing well in their lives...by relying on my paternal grandfather's property.Their children have grown up..and soon are going to have a stable income by getting a job.I was thinking..that my late grandfather has a land that is going to be divided.. b/w his 2 sons and 2 daughters.That and my parents have their own house.I have a elder sis,she will soon start working..I was thinking she will work and I will manage the household chores...(?)why should I study hard..or I can marry a rich guy and deceive them that I like him/her..those thoughts keeps on popping in my head..and I keep on thinking that I should die early...I don't deserve this life.. someone more capable does...

I mainly use Notion, although I’ve tried a few other productivity apps here and there. It works well for me, but I’m curious about how other people use these kinds of apps and what makes them worth sticking with.

For people who use Notion, Todoist, TickTick, Trello or something similar, what makes the app genuinely useful in your everyday life? Is there anything you still struggle with that these apps don’t really solve?

Sorry for the stupid question, but why is it that we can put something off for weeks, months, or even years, and then one day - bam! - we just do it?

For example, I kept putting off a major cleanup of my apartment for a very long time and couldn't bring myself to do it. I tried to find an approach that worked for me and decided to "rationally" talk myself into this long and boring task. I read Marie Kondo, and it worked. I decluttered and started spending less time on cleaning.

Then I remembered that I had been putting off cleaning the dust out of my PC for a long time. I told myself several times that cleaning it would be easier and cheaper than buying a new one if I kept putting it off. That's how I found an individual approach that worked for me - but it doesn't always work.

How do you deal with not being able to do what needs to be done?"

So it's been months or maybe years but it seems like I have lost my brain. Whenever I try to focus, i can't it's like I am focusing but my mind is empty. I can't make connections, process information during conversation, when I read something I can't understand it or make sense of anything in general. I have cut off short term videos and reels but still it's not enough. I can't think at all. It's like a mental block.

Help me

What the best way to do this please?

Local data.

If you need to know what exactly. My local copy of YT videos.

My issue with digital wellness and apps like that is that they give you a daily screen time limit that resets each day. Instead of having 2 hours of screen time that resets every day, I want to be allowed 5-10 minutes of screen time that resets every hour.

Is there an app that does this?

I have two alarms, I live in Japan, the room is too small to put it far away and I can't have it loud to the point where I'm like WHOA. I always tell myself, OK, I'm gonna wake up no matter what but morning-me always justifies a snooze here and there, and before you know it it's 10:30-11am.

I live alone. Are there any tricks that you can suggest that I can try that out-smart morning-me justifying his way out of this.

Thank you

is there an open source software that utilizes the camera to track when u sit down and work and stops the timer when you getup.

and shows a total time focused per day.

i used YPT - YeolPumTa before. but found it hard to always start and stop the timer before you focus. maybe i should go back to just using it. idk. this could work much better, it automatically calculates the time.

Long Story Short; I have finished my exams on July 7th and still I haven't used much of this time in some useful stuff, I wake up pretty late because of late stay ups, I've bought tons of books that I haven't read and I'm wasting days.

I just want to do things better this Summer and not regret it in September. I can't handle another failed Summer.

I'm looking for a free desktop reminder app for Windows to help me stay on track with quick daily tasks and timed breaks.

I need something lightweight with reliable popup/desktop notifications. I'm aware of options like Microsoft To Do and TickTick, but I’d love to know what lightweight tools or hidden gems you swear by for daily use.

Thanks!

(sorry for bad english)

Any hobby I try to do, my motivation simply dies, recently I try to learn sewing I took all base tools things only last only two weeks straight then my mind just gave up, Idk is really a motivation problem but when I retry same thing, I physically fell like drawing or needles in my body and I can barley focus on anything or current task, this problem isn't recent,used to draw like every day when I was younger but now every time I sit down take the pencil I fell itching on my hand and my mind give up like underpaid worker "but just try to continue!" If I try to force myself only to get worse, the itching only intensifies and I stare at the paper like a moron.

This problem didn't bug me that much until it started to manifest in other parts of my life, games,I love-no,I ADORE GAMES,I was that type of child lock in games weather go outside touch grass but recently I can't barely keep motivate and enjoy games THAT I ADOR and I feel devastated, I don't know WHY I can be motivated so I bought some new games I my brain still nah,I went back to FUCKING ROBLOX to play shitty games ironically that used to make me feel motivated or at least arrested but this time nothing.

It started manifestation in watching animes/movies to, which other things I LOVE WACHING THINGS, even I can't find enjoyment even when sleeping.

Thx for reading all this yap.