Sheet 7

Projects: a desk for a job

AI Tools Field Guide

Not affiliated with OpenAI, Google, xAI or Anthropic; your organization’s rules come first.

Attach the files once. Write the rules once. Every chat starts already knowing both.

Why use one

  • It remembers the job, not you. A project holds the files, the standing instructions and every chat about one job, so you stop re-attaching and retyping.
  • It fixes “it does not know my command”. Put the instruction, the template and last year’s approved package in it, and every answer draws on them.
  • It keeps work findable. One chat per nominee, per section, per week, side by side instead of lost in your history.
  • Use a plain chat for one-offs. A project earns its keep when you come back to the same job.

Make one in five minutes

  1. ChatGPT: Projects, then Create. Name it, add files under Sources (up to 40), write the instructions under Edit project.
  2. Grok: Projects, then Create project. Name it, add files, write the instructions. New chats default to Expert mode.
  3. Gemini: no projects. An agent with knowledge files does the same job.
  4. Write the standing instruction. “Use only the attached files. Match the attached template. Cite the paragraph. Write CONFIRM where something is missing.”

Sharing, as of September 2026

  • Gemini agents can be shared today with named people in your organization. Sharing the agent shares its files.
  • Grok shows a Share Project control, but sharing between users was not working for us yet. When it arrives, a whole shop can work from one project while each person’s chats stay private.
  • ChatGPT projects and GPTs have no share control yet. Share the four lines of instructions and the files instead.
  • Until then: the source lives on the share drive; the project is your working copy.

Take away

One job, one project: files once, rules once. Build it now for yourself; when sharing arrives your shop inherits a desk that already works.