After a particularly grueling week, I asked ChatGPT for advice on how to feel less exhausted, not expecting much. I’ve found lots of ways to coax useful answers out of ChatGPT before, but I wasn’t expecting it to have much for me here.
Indeed, what it gave me wasn’t new. There were no clever tricks or productivity hacks I hadn’t heard before. But they arrived with a level of detail and follow-through that made them feel easy to put into practice.
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Dinner decisions
The first suggestion was meal planning, which is about as basic a time-saving tip as you’ll hear in the 21st century.
ChatGPT acknowledged that, but said to consider it not as an extra chore, but a way to remove possibly hours of aggravating decision-making every day. It said to start with lunch.
“You are not trying to optimize every meal or become a perfect planner. The goal is to reduce the number of moments in your day where you stop and ask what comes next. If lunch is already decided, you’ve removed one small but consistent source of friction,” it wrote.
“Start with three or four meals you already like and rotate them. Write them down, get the ingredients once, and treat it as a default rather than a commitment. The benefit comes from not having to think about it again at 11 a.m.”
I gave it a shot. I picked a few simple dinners, nothing ambitious, and wrote them down at the start of the week. Grocery shopping became less of a wandering exercise and more of a short list. By midweek, the difference was noticeable.
Without the need to decide, there was less background stress and less procrastination. It did not turn cooking into a joy-filled ritual, but it removed the constant presence of thinking about it every morning.
Ending bed dread
ChatGPT then suggested I look to the end of the day and construct a structured bedtime, which felt slightly more personal.
Sleep advice is everywhere, but the guidance wasn’t so much about a specific time to lie down or a playlist to fall asleep to, but more about achieving consistency in my nighttime rituals.
“You do not need an ideal routine to see benefits. What matters most is choosing a consistent window and treating it as part of your day rather than an afterthought. Even a modest shift toward regular timing can improve how the next day feels,” it wrote.
“Think of bedtime as the final decision you make for your future self. If you remove the question of when to stop, you reduce the chances of drifting later without realizing it.”
I decided to take that seriously for a few nights, both as a test and as it was just good advice. I picked a reasonable time, set a reminder, and made a point of winding down instead of stretching the evening indefinitely.
The first night felt slightly forced, and even a week wasn’t enough to totally make me want to ignore the bed alarm. Still,
I did notice feeling more alert more quickly in the morning by the end of the week, and exercising warmups felt easier. This isn’t surprising, as sleep is an obvious source of a lot of how you feel, but it was notable since I wasn’t getting more sleep overall, just starting the process at around the same time.
A week didn’t lead to anything dramatic, but it at least didn’t add to my stress, as even hearing about ‘healthy bed routines’ sometimes does.
Fantasy vacations
The third suggestion was the most unexpected.
ChatGPT recommended planning a long-term trip, specifically something that felt distant enough to be exciting but concrete enough to work toward. It asked me what I might have in mind, and I mentioned wanting to see the Aurora in Scandinavia some winter. I know that’s not happening any time soon, but apparently that’s the point.
“Short-term stress often shrinks your sense of time. Planning something meaningful in the future can stretch that perspective back out. It gives you a reference point beyond the current week,” ChatGPT wrote.
“Choosing something that feels slightly ambitious but achievable is the point. The details matter less than the act of imagining it clearly. When you can picture where you’re going, it becomes easier to carry through the smaller demands of the present.”
The chatbot suggested spending a few minutes on it a day, just when I felt my focus fading or needed a quick break. It checked in on the project every day after it suggested setting up reminders.
I would describe the trip I envisioned, and some of the details I’d found, and ChatGPT gave me follow-up ideas for activities, restaurants, and other aspects to look up for the next day. Eventually, I had a whole outline of an itinerary, but just having it as a general goal, not tied to the immediate calendar, was enjoyable.
Wrapping it up
The most surprising part of the experiment was not that the advice worked. It was that it worked together. Meal planning reduced daily friction. A steady bedtime improved energy. Planning a trip added a sense of forward motion. None of it was complicated, and none of it required a dramatic overhaul of habits.
ChatGPT followed up, adjusted suggestions, and framed each idea in a way that made it easier to start. I did feel a little less worn out after a week. Not magically refreshed, but just less tense in my shoulders.
I do not plan to outsource everything to ChatGPT, but the reframing of useful advice was definitely a pleasant discovery. The way it was delivered made it stick. That, more than anything, was the surprise.
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ESchwartzwrites@gmail.com (Eric Hal Schwartz)
