I Couldn't Do This Without ChatGPT
Brief Summary:
This video explores how the creator uses ChatGPT daily to supercharge his creative workflow across videos, podcasts, YouTube SEO, and Apple Shortcuts automations. He shares real-world prompts, custom GPT integrations, and hands-on tips for streamlining content production. Whether you're a content creator, podcaster, or automation fan, you'll discover actionable ways to save hours and boost quality with AI.
1. Introduction: How ChatGPT Fuels Content Creation
The creator opens with a clear declaration of ChatGPT's importance in his daily workflow:
"I use ChatGPT every day and I could not produce the amount of content I do, like videos and podcasts, without these prompts that speed up my entire workflow."
From YouTube videos and podcasts to thumbnails and show notes, every aspect is streamlined with ChatGPT through either the Mac desktop app or custom-trained GPTs. He teases that throughout the video, he'll walk through all his favorite prompts, custom aids, and how it all fits together.
2. YouTube Prompts: Automating Titles, Descriptions & Tags
The most vital tool in his arsenal is a custom GPT dubbed "YouTube Sidekick". He personally trained it with his own video history and writing style, so it knows exactly how he wants his titles, descriptions, and tags formatted.
"I have a custom GPT that I call my YouTube sidekick. Now, I've trained it on my own videos, my own voice, and how I like to formulate titles, descriptions, and tags."
When creating a video, he:
- Transcribes the MP3 audio for quick content extraction while editing video.
- Drops the transcript into the custom GPT using the Mac app and a handy TextExpander shortcut to trigger the main prompt.
- The prompt instructs ChatGPT to create an optimized YouTube title, a two-sentence description, and comma-separated tags under 500 characters for YouTube's requirements.
He often plugs his other videos in each new one and lets ChatGPT pick those up from the transcript, making linking in YouTube end cards a breeze.
"Now when I run this, it takes just a few seconds and I get the title, description, tags, and even my end screen videos—all based on my transcript."
He usually tweaks the title and description for that authentic touch but finds the tags are solid and quick to copy-paste. To optimize further, he asks ChatGPT for more alternative titles to A/B test—sometimes generating ten at a time—taking advantage of YouTube's title testing feature.
"Because you can now A-B test titles in YouTube with the same thumbnail, I will test three titles pretty much every video now."
He uses TextExpander to swiftly repeat this cycle until he finds the perfect title and description.
Another time-saving move: he asks ChatGPT for "two to three word headlines" for thumbnails, which spit out a list of snappy options to make thumbnails pop.
"Just having one or two really good ones of all the things ChatGPT gives me goes a long way."
3. Podcast Prompts: Summaries and Beyond
Beyond videos, he explains his heavy use of ChatGPT for podcasting. He's trained a custom GPT, "Summary Scout," to summarize articles in a crisp, "news anchor" style for use on his daily podcast.
"I've trained this GPT to give me summaries in the voice of a news anchor because I want to use these when I'm recording a daily podcast."
The process is ultra-efficient:
- If reading an article in Safari, he copies it in "reader mode" and pastes it into his custom GPT using a quick TextExpander shortcut (
;sgpt), which fires a simple "summarize the following article into one paragraph" instruction. - The GPT, already brimming with personalized instructions, delivers a complete, ready-to-read podcast segment in seconds.
For podcasts, he often mass-produces:
- Titles that focus on three main topics, "cut and dry, no superlative language or adjective-laden wording."
- Podcast episode descriptions, always concise and to the point.
4. Custom GPTs for Apple Shortcuts & API Integrations
The creator showcases his Shortcuts GPT—a custom-trained AI assistant designed to help with building advanced Apple Shortcuts and integrating online APIs, even confessing:
"I don't know how to use APIs or speak JSON, but ChatGPT is actually pretty good at it."
The workflow:
- When he finds a new API (like a movie database or barcode scanner), he provides the API's documentation to the custom GPT.
- The GPT learns from it and advises how to build Shortcuts that interact with the API, step by step.
"This custom GPT has allowed me to build dozens of shortcuts I could not do on my own."
Special community tip: By joining his shortcuts community at shortcut.bot, anyone can access this GPT, request priority shortcuts, and even join live-streamed shortcut-building sessions.
5. ChatGPT for Regex & Advanced Automation
The Shortcuts GPT also helps with tricky stuff like regular expressions (regex)—a powerful way to match text patterns for tasks like extracting podcast file links from RSS feeds.
"I'm not super familiar with regex...but this custom GPT has done really well for that. I can just copy this regex, put it in a match text action in shortcuts, and 90-something percent of the time it works great."
Real example:
- He uses a shortcut to fetch the latest podcast episode, transcribe it, summarize it (in just three sentences plus bullet points), and save it all into an Apple Note—fully automatic, with only the podcast's RSS feed needing to be changed for new shows.
6. Everyday Prompts in Shortcuts: From Food Tracking to Podcast News
He highlights how prompts are everywhere in his Apple Shortcut ecosystem—creating powerful, multi-step automations. Two highlights:
a. Primary Tech Show (PTS) Daily News
This daily shortcut bundles articles from top tech news sources (Apple Newsroom, Tech Meme, The Verge, 9to5Mac, etc.). He curates stories, building a daily podcast in minutes:
"Summarize the following article into one paragraph, cut any fluff, and be sure to mention specific names of people, devices, or software."
The shortcut then writes:
- A bare-bones title focusing on the day's top three topics.
- A concise podcast description.
- Links and summaries for each article—auto-formatted, ready to paste.
"This is basically an hour or multiple hours worth of work in a shortcut and preparing this note for me. And I can run that in the background while I do other things."
b. Primary Tech Show Notes
After recording each weekly episode, he grabs every link discussed from a Safari tab group and runs a shortcut that:
- Formats all article links for show notes (in HTML and rich text).
- Asks him to choose headlines for titles/descriptions.
- Sends those to ChatGPT for a quick SEO-optimized podcast title and description.
He polishes the results, adds chapters and artwork as needed, and just like that—professional podcast notes are done in no time.
7. Wrapping Up
The creator wraps with a thankful invitation:
"So those are the prompts that help me get things done every day for my videos and podcasts and more... I would appreciate if you join the shortcuts community, shortcut.bot. There you can support the channel and me as a creator and tune into my weekly live streams where I get to build shortcuts live and take your requests live."
He directs viewers to his latest Apple Intelligence Shortcuts video, urges them to subscribe for more, and hints at new shortcuts content coming soon. With ChatGPT at the center, his entire workflow is faster, smarter, and more creative than ever.
Key Takeaways:
- Custom GPTs trained on your content and voice make content creation personal and efficient.
- ChatGPT can automate YouTube SEO, thumbnail headlines, podcast summaries, and even advanced technical tasks like API calls and regex.
- Apple Shortcuts supercharged by AI prompts save hours and unleash new kinds of daily automation.
"I couldn't do this without ChatGPT."
If you want to streamline your own podcasting or video creation, these practical prompts and automations are a goldmine! 🚀
Need a summary like this?
Get instant summaries with Harvest