Organizing Summer: Harnessing AI for a Stress-Free Season

Have you ever found yourself Googling, “How do I entertain my kids this summer?” only to then have to wade through dozens of local blogs and websites to find the answer to your question? The same is true for meal planning. One of life’s never-ending chores is figuring out what to eat for dinner!

Thankfully, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have given rise to innovative solutions that can alleviate some of this stress and help busy families like yours enjoy a smoother and more enjoyable summer.

In this blog post, I’ll share with you my recent successes with ChatGPT*, which can be utilized to streamline your summer experience – making it easier to plan daily activities, organize family vacations, and prepare healthy meals. Let’s dive in and discover how AI can become your trusted know-it-all bestie in achieving a stress-free and memorable summer season.

Use AI to Help Plan Daily Activities:

Summer often means a juggle of activities for families. From sports camps and playdates to summer classes and outings, it can be a daunting task to keep track of everyone’s schedules. This is where AI programs like ChatGPT can come to the rescue. By simply providing the necessary details such as the family members’ availability and preferences, ChatGPT can generate personalized daily itineraries, ensuring that everyone’s activities are accounted for and well-organized.

My kids are older now, but I made up an example to show you how it works. Check it out in the video below. I searched first for summer camp options, and then asked it to make a schedule for a 7-year-old.

Use AI to Help Plan Family Vacations:

You can even take it a step further and use ChatGPT to plan a family vacation. From choosing the perfect destination to arranging accommodations, transportation, and activities, the list can seem endless. AI can assist in streamlining this process by analyzing your preferences, budget, and other requirements. ChatGPT can suggest popular family-friendly destinations, provide personalized itineraries, recommend attractions, and even assist in booking flights and accommodations (if you have the plugins available with the paid version).

Here’s an example from @jcollinscreative on Instagram:

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Note: This is one instance when you may want to try out Bard* (Google’s AI program). It pulls more recent data from the internet and therefore may be able to give you more up-to-date information.

Use AI to Help Plan Healthy Summer Meals:

One final summer headache is figuring out what to feed your kiddos all. day. long. (Can you ever have enough food in the house?!) AI can lend a helping hand by suggesting easy and nutritious recipes based on your family’s dietary preferences and requirements. ChatGPT can provide recipe ideas, meal plans, and even generate grocery lists to make your shopping experience more efficient.

Here’s a brief video look at how easy it was to create a 7-day meal plan for my family.

Once you’ve generated your list, you can copy/paste it into a word doc, print it out and head to the store. Or, if you have ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) you can add the Instacart plugin and automatically sync it to your account. Your groceries will be at your door in no time!

Need a little more guidance when it comes to preparing each meal? Take it a step further by asking ChatGPT to “Generate recipes for each of these meals for me to follow.” It will provide them for you, step by step, one day at a time. Just copy them into a word doc and print.

Because ChatGPT saves your previous conversations, you can always return later to follow up and ask for the recipes as you go instead of doing it all at once. Your preference!

Precautions

As most AI programs will warn you, they are almost all in beta form, meaning there are bound to be glitches. Info isn’t always accurate. It’s a great place to start, but verify any information before making decisions.

AI is quickly emerging as the next great technology, but it remains relatively unregulated and the potential is there for malicious use. Just like any other internet-based technology, never share personal details about yourself or your family (like a final vacation itinerary, address, or personally identifiable information).

And finally, a warning directly from ChatGPT, “Remember, while AI can be a valuable tool, it’s important to balance its use with real-life interactions…” Your friends’ and family’s experiences are valuable, too!

Embrace the possibilities, and let AI empower you to create lasting memories with your loved ones this summer.

Happy Organizing, and have a great summer!

Susie

*P.s. A note about why I chose to focus on ChatGPT for the purposes of this blog. Google has its own AI program called Bard, and there are several others in existence as well. In comparing responses, I felt that ChatGPT’s were the best. They were more nuanced and filled in a lot of blanks, which you can especially see when I asked it to create a summer schedule for a kid! (It added morning and bedtime routines, outdoor and educational time, and quiet time – even though I didn’t ask for them.)

It is limited to information it can gather through just 2021, however, so that is something to keep in mind. (Despite this, it still gave better information regarding summer camps than Bard!) Bard does have the ability to do a direct Google search, download responses, and rate your responses. Feel free to try both and see which you prefer!

P.p.s. More summer blogs you’ll love!