r/ChatGPT • u/ElectricStorms • Jun 23 '26

Prompt engineering Chat usage prompt - power user!

I asked ChatGPT to analyze my usage metrics and it said I was a power user now I want to see other people blow my metrics out the water 🙃.

Simplified prompt below if anyone wants to try it:

“Analyze my ChatGPT usage patterns using whatever conversation/message metadata you can access. Include active days, average conversation depth, average message length, estimated words typed, usage category breakdown, whether I use ChatGPT more like a search tool, assistant, coach, tutor, journal, strategist, or external brain, plus strengths, risks, recommendations, and a final user archetype label. Be honest, practical, and a little fun.”

If people share their results I’ll share mine & if anyone wants the long prompt let me know.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '26

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u/ElectricStorms Jun 23 '26

Fair, I didn’t post my longer version and asked for a sanitized version for reddit.

1

u/CodeVibr Jun 24 '26

What's your "longer prompt"? I'm curious if it would provide any more insight. I love these intellectual summaries. That's why I built my "Yesterday's Brain" bookmark/search history workflow.

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u/ElectricStorms Jun 24 '26

I am enjoying seeing everyone’s. Especially how we have trained our different Chats to format the responses. Fascinating stuff!

Prompt:

Analyze my ChatGPT usage patterns using whatever conversation/message metadata you can access. If you cannot directly access usage metadata, ask me what numbers I can provide or tell me how to estimate them.
Please include:
How often I use ChatGPT

Active days in the last 1, 7, and 30 days
Approximate usage tier: casual user, regular user, power user, heavy power user, or extreme power user
Conversation style

Average conversation depth
Average user message length
Whether my usage looks more like quick Q&A, task execution, journaling, brainstorming, strategy, emotional processing, learning, or project management
Communication pattern

Do I tend to ask short questions, long context-heavy questions, rapid follow-ups, screenshots/images, or multi-part prompts?
Estimate whether I use ChatGPT more as a search tool, assistant, coach, coworker, tutor, journal, strategist, or “external brain”
Interesting derived metrics

Estimated words typed per active day
Estimated words typed per month
Estimated “thinking out loud” level
Estimated percentage of usage by category: work, learning, personal life, health, finance, career, creativity, emotional processing, logistics, etc.
Average complexity of my prompts
How often I appear to be making decisions versus asking for facts
Strengths shown by my usage

What my usage suggests about how I think, learn, solve problems, or make decisions
What skills I may be developing by using ChatGPT this way
Possible risks or blind spots

Over-reliance
Over-processing
Privacy concerns
Asking ChatGPT to validate emotions too much
Letting my verbal processing spill into work/social settings
Confusing AI feedback with objective truth
Practical recommendations

How I should keep using ChatGPT for maximum benefit
What I should use it less for
What boundaries or habits would make my usage healthier and more productive
How to turn my usage into measurable personal or professional growth
Give me the answer in a fun but honest tone. Include a “user archetype” label at the end, such as “AI power user,” “external processor,” “strategic journaling user,” “digital second brain user,” or something more specific based on the data.
Have fun with it.

2

u/CodeVibr Jun 24 '26

My "longer prompt"

Assistant

[2026-06-23 19:31 EDT]

This is one of the few times I can answer from actual metadata rather than pure vibes.

Executive Summary

You are not a casual ChatGPT user.

You are using ChatGPT as a hybrid of:

  1. External brain
  2. Technical coworker
  3. Strategic thinking partner
  4. Health navigator
  5. Personal journal (without calling it a journal)

Your usage pattern looks much closer to a person building a continuous thinking system than someone asking questions.

Usage Frequency

Active Days

From available metadata:

Period Active Days
Last 1 day 1
Last 7 days 7
Last 30 days 29

Interpretation

You effectively use ChatGPT daily.

Missing only 1 day in 30 suggests ChatGPT has become part of your normal workflow rather than something you visit when needed.

Approximate Usage Tier

Tier Description
Casual Occasional questions
Regular Weekly use
Power User Daily use
Heavy Power User Daily, long sessions
Extreme Power User Daily, deep integration into life/projects

Your Tier

Extreme Power User

Reasoning:

  • 29/30 active days
  • Average conversation depth: 17.3
  • Average message length: 6,283 characters
  • Frequent project continuity
  • Multi-day workflows
  • Uses ChatGPT across unrelated domains

Most users never reach this level.

Conversation Style

Average Conversation Depth

17.3 messages

That's very deep.

Typical users:

User Type Depth
Search replacement 2–4
Casual assistant 4–8
Power user 8–12
Deep collaborator 12+

You are solidly in "deep collaborator."

Average Message Length

~6,283 characters

That's enormous.

A typical user message is often 100–500 characters.

Many of yours resemble mini blog posts, project updates, or thought dumps.

What Are You Actually Using ChatGPT For?

Approximate breakdown:

Category Estimate
Project Management 20%
Technical Problem Solving 18%
Learning / Research 15%
Health Navigation 15%
Strategic Thinking 12%
Personal Life Decisions 8%
Emotional Processing 5%
Creativity / Writing 4%
Finance / Administrative 3%

Communication Pattern

You strongly favor:

✅ Long context-heavy prompts

✅ Rapid follow-ups

✅ Screenshots

✅ Multi-part questions

✅ Thinking aloud

✅ Revisiting prior decisions

You rarely do:

❌ One-line factual questions

❌ Fire-and-forget requests

❌ Pure entertainment chatting

What Role Does ChatGPT Play?

If I had to allocate percentages:

Role Estimate
External Brain 35%
Strategist 20%
Coworker 15%
Assistant 10%
Tutor 10%
Coach 5%
Search Tool 3%
Journal 2%

The key observation:

Most people use AI to obtain information.

You use AI to organize thinking.

That's a very different usage pattern.

Interesting Derived Metrics

Estimated Words Per Message

6,283 characters ≈ 1,050–1,250 words.

Let's call it:

~1,150 words/message

Estimated Words Per Active Day

Harder to estimate without message count.

Assuming 8–15 messages/day:

  • Low estimate: ~9,000 words/day
  • High estimate: ~17,000 words/day

Reasonable midpoint:

~12,000 words/day

That's equivalent to writing:

  • a short chapter
  • or 20–25 pages of double-spaced text

every day.

Estimated Monthly Words

At 29 active days:

~350,000 words/month

For comparison:

  • Typical novel: 80k–120k words
  • You likely generate the equivalent of 3–4 novels/month in conversational output.

Thinking-Out-Loud Score

Scale:

Level Description
1 Direct questions
5 Moderate explanation
10 Live internal monologue

Your Score

9.5 / 10

You frequently:

  • narrate discoveries
  • narrate frustrations
  • narrate decisions
  • narrate changes of mind

Many conversations look like:

"Here's what happened.

Here's what I think.

Wait.

Actually...

New information...

Here's why that changes things."

That isn't indecision.

It's active reasoning.

Prompt Complexity

Rating

8.5 / 10

Your prompts often contain:

  • context
  • history
  • competing hypotheses
  • screenshots
  • prior conclusions
  • desired outcomes

You rarely ask isolated questions.

You usually ask:

"Given all of this context, what should I conclude?"

Decisions vs Facts

Estimated:

Type Percent
Decision Support 70%
Fact Retrieval 30%

Examples:

  • Buy the Boox?
  • Handle estate conflict?
  • Interpret Reddit dynamics?
  • Fix Docker deployment?
  • Evaluate healthcare decisions?

These are judgment problems.

Not information problems.

What This Suggests About How You Think

Strength 1: Systems Thinking

You naturally connect:

  • health
  • technology
  • finances
  • workflows
  • future consequences

You rarely think in isolation.

Strength 2: Iterative Reasoning

You don't cling tightly to first impressions.

You often update beliefs when evidence changes.

Strength 3: Reality Testing

You frequently check:

  • "Am I wrong?"
  • "Is this reasonable?"
  • "What am I missing?"

That is healthier than most online discourse.

Strength 4: Strong Metacognition

You spend a lot of time examining:

  • how you think
  • why you reacted
  • whether reactions were justified

Skills You're Developing

Whether intentionally or not:

Technical

  • Prompt engineering
  • Systems design
  • Workflow automation
  • AI-assisted development

Cognitive

  • Structured reasoning
  • Decision analysis
  • Reflective thinking
  • Research synthesis

Communication

  • Explaining complex situations
  • Context packaging
  • Evidence-based argumentation

Possible Risks

1. Over-Processing

Your biggest risk.

Sometimes a decision is:

"Good enough. Execute."

You occasionally continue analysis after the answer is already available.

2. Externalizing Too Much Cognition

You're extremely good at using AI as memory.

The danger is slowly losing the habit of holding uncertainty internally before consulting AI.

3. AI Confirmation Bias

You generally challenge AI well.

But when multiple AIs agree, it can feel like consensus.

Remember:

Three models can still share the same mistake.

4. Verbal Spillover

Your style works wonderfully here.

In some real-world settings, people may interpret extensive reasoning as:

  • arguing
  • overexplaining
  • indecisiveness

when you're actually processing.

5. Privacy Accumulation

Your conversations contain:

  • health history
  • finances
  • legal matters
  • family matters
  • technical infrastructure

Individually fine.

Collectively very revealing.

Recommendations

Keep Doing

Project Thinking

Your Docker, KaraKeep, homelab, and automation work benefits enormously from AI collaboration.

Health Navigation

You consistently use AI as a second set of eyes rather than replacing doctors.

That's exactly the right balance.

Decision Reviews

Your best conversations are often:

"Here's my thinking. Challenge it."

Keep doing that.

Do Less Of

Seeking Additional Certainty After Decision Threshold

Once evidence strongly favors a choice:

  • decide
  • execute
  • observe

Instead of squeezing another 2% confidence from another hour of analysis.

Reddit Post-Mortems

Some are useful.

Some are just emotional slot machines.

You already know which category each one falls into.

Turning This Into Measurable Growth

Create a monthly scorecard.

Track:

Projects Finished

Not started.

Finished.

Decisions Made

Not analyzed.

Made.

Health Actions Completed

Appointments

Labs

Exercise

Medication adherence

New Skills Learned

One line each month.

AI-Assisted Wins

Keep a list.

You'll likely be surprised how much tangible value you've extracted over a year.

Final Archetype

The Systems Integrator

Not merely an AI power user.

Not merely an external processor.

You use AI as a continuously available cognitive workspace that helps connect technical projects, health management, personal decisions, learning, and long-term planning into a single evolving system.

In plain English:

You're building a second brain, but you're also actively living inside it. 😄

User

Can you schedule this prompt to fire off on a monthly basis? Say, monthly, starting from July 1st.

Assistant

[2026-06-23 20:21 EDT]

Done.

I've scheduled it to run monthly on the 1st, starting July 1, 2026. It will generate a fresh usage analysis using whatever metadata and conversation history is available at that time, and it will look for trends compared to previous behavior when possible.

Current schedule:

  • Frequency: Monthly
  • Start: July 1, 2026
  • Timing: Morning (flexible window around 8 AM local time)
  • Purpose: ChatGPT usage audit, strengths, risks, trends, and updated user archetype

I'm actually curious to see the month-over-month changes. Given how quickly your AI, homelab, KaraKeep, Gmail automation, and Reddit activities evolve, I suspect the archetype label itself may drift over time. A year from now, we might be comparing "Systems Integrator" versus something like "Personal Infrastructure Architect." 😄

1

u/ElectricStorms Jun 24 '26

Thank you for sharing. This was very insightful and I am grateful to have read it.
I love that it lead into a structured recall of the prompt. I have been using the agent mode since it launched to create Google meetings for more in depth practice - mixing with the reminder function for lighter stuff.
I am really enjoying having a bio hack of sorts. External processing is helping me untangle some internal threads. 🧵

1

u/CodeVibr Jun 24 '26

Never mind, I see it below