How I’m using ChatGPT to turn my goals into recurring habits
I have a confession.
I am one of those people who gets very excited about learning.
I make plans. I save articles. I buy books. I create courses for myself. I decide that this is the year I’m finally going to learn investing, improve my leadership skills, become better at strategy, understand technology, read more, build my career and probably learn three new languages while I’m at it.
😂
The problem isn’t a lack of things I want to learn.
The problem is consistency.
I realised recently that I don’t necessarily need more information.
I need a system that keeps bringing me back to the things I said were important to me.
And that’s when I started using one of ChatGPT’s features that I don’t think enough people know about:
Scheduled Tasks.
What are ChatGPT Scheduled Tasks?
In simple terms, you can tell ChatGPT to do something for you at a particular time or on a recurring schedule.
Instead of opening ChatGPT every week and remembering:
“Oh yeah… I said I was going to study investing tonight.”
I can tell ChatGPT:
“Every Thursday evening, teach me a lesson from my Personal Investor Academy.”
And then it can run that task according to the schedule I’ve set.
Scheduled Tasks can be used for one-time or recurring tasks, reminders, recurring learning, updates and other workflows. They are available to eligible users across Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business and Edu plans, although the number of active tasks and scheduling capabilities vary by plan.
For me, this has changed the way I think about ChatGPT.
I’m not just asking it questions anymore.
I’m using it as part of my personal operating system.
My Three Current Scheduled Learning Systems
I’ve currently got three recurring ChatGPT tasks that are particularly useful to me.
1. My Personal Investor Academy
I’ve been wanting to properly learn how to invest as a self-directed investor.
Not just:
“What’s an ETF?”
I want to understand how to actually think like an investor.
So I created what I call my:
Personal Investor Academy
Every Thursday evening, ChatGPT teaches me something from my own learning curriculum.
The instruction isn’t simply “teach me about investing.”
I gave it a broader objective:
- build my understanding progressively
- learn portfolio construction
- understand financial statements
- learn valuation
- understand risk
- develop portfolio management skills
- eventually tackle more advanced investing concepts
- include practical exercises
- use realistic examples
- focus on long-term investing rather than short-term trading
This is important because I don’t have to decide what to study every Thursday.
The curriculum already exists.
ChatGPT simply picks up where we left off.
That removes one tiny but surprisingly powerful source of friction:
What should I learn today?
The answer is already scheduled.
2. My Weekend Long Read
This one might actually be my favourite.
I love reading.
But the internet is an absolute firehose of information.
There are thousands of articles, papers, essays, reports and newsletters published every week.
So instead of endlessly scrolling and saving things that I might read someday, I created a weekly task.
Every Saturday, ChatGPT finds one exceptional piece of reading for me.
But I gave it criteria.
I want material around areas I’m genuinely interested in:
- strategy
- leadership and management
- digital transformation
- AI and technology
- project and portfolio management
- systems
- personal growth
- philosophy and spirituality
And I specifically told it that I want substantial pieces—not just five-minute listicles.
Where appropriate, I also want academic research papers, case studies and rigorous research.
Then every week I get:
one thing worth my time.
That’s it.
Not 37 tabs.
Not 14 saved articles.
Not an inbox full of newsletters.
One exceptional piece of thinking.
And because it is scheduled, I don’t have to remember to go looking.
3. My IBMS Monday Review
This one is a little different because it isn’t really about learning.
It’s about accountability.
I’m currently working on a major documentation and systems-improvement project at work involving our Integrated Business Management System.
It’s a big project.
And like most big projects, it can become very easy to spend weeks working on things without stepping back and asking:
Am I actually moving forward?
So I created a Monday review with ChatGPT.
Every Monday, it asks me to report:
- What did I actually complete last week?
- What am I delivering this week?
- What issues, blockers or decisions do I have?
- Am I still aligned with my target completion date?
And I specifically instructed it to call me out if I’m:
- procrastinating
- over-planning
- getting distracted
- allowing scope creep
- spending time on lower-priority work
I don’t want a cheerleader.
I want something that makes me stop and look at the actual evidence of progress.
The Interesting Part Isn’t the Technology
The more I use this, the more I realise that the interesting part isn’t really ChatGPT.
It’s the system I’ve built around myself.
Think about what is happening:
Thursday
Learn about investing.
Saturday
Read something exceptional.
Monday
Review my progress and set priorities.
Those are now recurring points in my week.
I don’t have to rely entirely on motivation.
I don’t have to remember.
I don’t have to decide from scratch every time.
I’ve essentially outsourced a little bit of the remembering and prompting to AI.
And I keep the important part:
I decide what I want my life to be about.
ChatGPT helps me create the structure around it.
This Is How I Think AI Becomes Really Useful
I think there is a tendency to use AI as a search box.
We ask:
“Explain this.”
“Write this.”
“Summarise this.”
“Give me ideas.”
And that’s useful.
But I’m becoming much more interested in something else:
What happens when AI becomes part of your personal systems?
Instead of:
Ask → Answer → Done
you can create:
Goal → System → Schedule → Recurring interaction → Progress → Review → Adjustment
That’s a completely different relationship with the technology.
And you don’t need to be a programmer to do it.
You can literally describe what you want in normal language.
For example:
“Every Thursday evening, teach me the next lesson in my investment curriculum and give me a practical exercise.”
That’s a workflow.
You Could Do This With Almost Anything
Imagine telling ChatGPT:
Learning
Every Tuesday, teach me one concept from my project management curriculum.
Reading
Every Saturday, find me one exceptional long-form article about leadership.
Career
Every Friday, help me review what I accomplished professionally this week.
Language
Every evening, give me a 10-minute Bahasa Indonesia lesson.
Writing
Every Sunday, give me a writing prompt and then critique my response.
Business
Every Monday, ask me what I did last week to move my business forward.
PhD preparation
Every month, help me identify what I need to do next to prepare for doctoral study.
Personal reflection
Every Sunday evening, guide me through a weekly reflection.
The possibilities are pretty wild.
And the beauty is that you don’t necessarily need another app for every single thing.
One Important Caveat
There are different levels of access depending on your ChatGPT plan.
As of September 2026, Scheduled Tasks are available to eligible users on Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business and Edu plans, but the limits and scheduling capabilities differ. Free and Go users can have up to three active tasks, while other plans have higher limits. Exact delivery times and more frequent recurring schedules require eligible paid plans.
So if you don’t see exactly the same options I have, it may be because of your plan, account, app version or workspace settings.
You can also manage your tasks from the Scheduled section of ChatGPT, including pausing, editing and deleting them.
I’m Not Trying to Become More Productive
This might sound strange coming from someone who has just written an article about automating learning.
But I’m actually trying to become more intentional.
There is a difference.
I don’t want every minute of my life optimised.
I don’t want AI telling me what I should care about.
I don’t want to automate my entire existence.
I want to use technology to help me consistently show up for the things I have already decided matter to me.
That’s a very different philosophy.
I choose the goals.
I choose the subjects.
I choose the priorities.
I choose what I want to learn.
And then I let AI help me build a little structure around those decisions.
So Here’s My Experiment
I’m going to keep doing this.
My current little AI-powered learning system looks something like this:
| Day | Scheduled with ChatGPT | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | IBMS Weekly Review | Accountability & project progress |
| Thursday | Personal Investor Academy | Structured financial education |
| Saturday | Weekend Long Read | Deep learning & intellectual curiosity |
It’s simple.
But I have a feeling that simple systems repeated for a long time can become pretty powerful.
And maybe that’s the bigger lesson I’ve taken from this:
You don’t always need more motivation.
Sometimes you just need to build a system that remembers what matters to you when you inevitably get busy and forget.
And maybe AI can help with that.
What could you schedule?
If you’re already using ChatGPT, think about one thing you keep saying:
“I really should do this every week.”
Maybe that’s learning.
Maybe it’s reading.
Maybe it’s exercising.
Maybe it’s working on your business.
Maybe it’s your finances.
Maybe it’s finally making progress on that project you’ve been talking about for six months.
Instead of relying on yourself to remember…
Ask ChatGPT to remind you, teach you, review you, or help you keep moving.
That’s what I’ve started doing.
And honestly?
I’m kind of obsessed with it.
— Kezziah