ChatGPT Work Tutorial for Beginners

About this video

A step-by-step beginner tutorial on ChatGPT Work, presented as the mode where you hand ChatGPT a whole task instead of a simple prompt and get back finished files. The presenter switches between Chat and Work at the top of the desktop app (ignoring Codex, which is for coding), notes past work in the left sidebar, and stresses setting work to run on your computer if you want it to use local files. Using a donut shop example, he drags a folder of four months of sales spreadsheets into the prompt, suggests asking for approval before sensitive actions at first, and frames the prompt as a work order with three parts: outcome (a new Excel file ranking which donuts make and lose the most money, plus an actionable insight), context, and standard (plain English, dollars rounded). Work reads the files and produces an Excel preview ranking margins — identifying Maple Bacon as a loser — then is steered iteratively, including with a pasted screenshot, to split out box sets and fix odd characters in a cell. For a PowerPoint version, he turns on Plan mode so ChatGPT asks questions and presents editable steps before acting, arguing catching mistakes in the plan is cheaper than fixing finished work. He then covers plugins (installed and invoked with @name, e.g. to find a misplaced supplier price list), a sponsored QuickBooks Workforce plugin demo, reusable Skills created via @skill creator (a ‘Donut Margin Report’ skill), scheduled tasks managed from the sidebar, and publishing a report as a hosted Sites web page to share by link, which he says takes about 10 minutes to create.

Key takeaways

• Use Work mode for whole tasks that return finished Excel, PowerPoint, or other files, and set the location to your computer to work on local files
• Write the first prompt as a work order: outcome, context, and standard for what good looks like
• Expect to iterate — give corrections and screenshots rather than trying to write a perfect first prompt
• Turn on Plan mode for larger jobs so you can edit the plan before ChatGPT acts
• Save repeatable instructions as a Skill, then run that Skill on a schedule or publish its output via Sites

Episode details: published August 27, 2026 · 9:23 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Kevin Stratvert’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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