As I mentioned previously in Consume less create more Pt2, one of my interests is in how to reduce mental load of parents by utilizing tech, and one of the things that always stress me out about being a parent are birthday parties. I love creating that magic moment for my daughter, but oh my, making all these decisions, thinking of everything in advance…it’s just draining too much energy, even when I split the work with my husband.
Just tell me what to do.
For the past two years, I turned to ChatGPT. The first year, I simply asked:
I want to plan a 5th birthday party for my daughter. What do I need to think about?
And it gave me a comprehensive timeline, covering everything from choosing a theme to setting up activity stations on the day of the party.
Timeline and Preparation:
- 4 weeks before the party:
- Choose the theme, create invitations, and send them out.
- Plan the menu and activities.
- 2 weeks before the party:
- Purchase or create decorations, party favors, and supplies.
- Confirm RSVPs and finalize the guest list.
- 1 week before the party:
- Prepare a shopping list for food and any last-minute supplies.
- 2 days before the party:
- Do the grocery shopping.
- Assemble party favors.
- 1 day before the party:
- Prepare any make-ahead food items.
- Set up the party area and decorations.
- Party day:
- Prepare remaining food.
- Set up activity stations.
Back in early 2023, the novelty factor of LLM producing a solid result definitely made me more excited than it does now in 2024. Even then I remember thinking, I could have just googled for it and probably gotten the exact same answer.
BUT I also remember, that I realized, that using ChatGPT instead of just googling it meant that I have created a thread with this “thing” and it knows (at least for a bit) the entire context of what I’m doing.
I want to pick an option, not come up with them.
So I started playing around with it. With it knowing the context, I could now ask follow-up questions. Give me 3 recommendations for the theme.
The output was a little disappointing in terms of being very gendered. How about Princess Party, Unicorn Magic, or Mermaid under the Sea (while for boys it was Superhero Adventure, Dinosaur Dig, or Space Explorer.) While there’s nothing wrong with any of those themes, I needed some course correction because we had enough unicorn and princesses in the years prior, eventually it came up with Enchanted Forest which we all liked.
Then there’s all these little things that I would probably spend way too much time and energy on diving deep into on Pinterest or DIY groups (which I’m a big fan of and therefore in danger of.) But when I asked ChatGPT to give me ideas for activities, food options, and party favors for the theme of Unicorn Superhero it delivered!
- Activities:
- Fairy House Craft: Provide small boxes, paint, and natural materials like twigs, leaves, and flowers for kids to create their own fairy houses.
- Forest Animal Scavenger Hunt: Hide pictures or small toys of forest animals around the party area for kids to find.
- Food options:
- Woodland-themed cupcakes or cookies (e.g., mushrooms, animals, or trees)
- "Magic" fruit wands (fruit skewers with star-shaped fruit at the top)
- Forest trail mix (nuts, dried fruit, and chocolate chips)
- Party favors:
- Small fairy or gnome figurines
- Enchanted forest-themed coloring books
- Nature-themed temporary tattoos
This was a solid and quite helpful start! And even though I didn’t pick up everything exactly like this, it simply is much easier to decide between a few options than starting from scratch.
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ChatGPT isn’t a local.
I also tried to get some good recommendations for where to host this party nearby and while it had some ideas that would technically fit the specs, they were actually not useful. Well, maybe if you celebrate your kids’ birthday in an event location with a capacity of up to 1000 people… I couldn’t get it to even come up with the go-to destinations that local parents would tell you about. While it does make sense as there isn’t a lot of public content about them meaning it was never trained on such knowledge, it was still a bit disappointing. Hopefully, in the near future, more custom-trained models or targeted assistants/agents will focus on including more local content as an additional knowledge base.
Some creative assistance needed.
Fast-forward to this year, I already had a destination in mind. Since last year it wasn’t too helpful to send out invites via Evite as all communication still happened via WhatsApp, this year, I wanted to just create a little cute visual illustration to send around with the details. Once again, I decided to put ChatGPT to the test.
It was actually helpful. But only if you know how to lightly edit the output because it never fully got all the details right. It’s not designed to do that, but it’s easy to imagine how quickly even a general model like the ones accessible via ChatGPT will get there. Until then, it’s a bit entertaining to see some technology creating something visual that is almost getting it, but not quite.
My take-away
Long story short, I found it really handy to use ChatGPT for planning my daughter’s birthday parties because
- It got me unstuck. It helped me move past the initial ‘blank canvas’ problem and not waste my energy on simply coming up with ideas and a checklist.
- It leverages best practices. Because of the nature of LLMs, it will surface existing patterns, like the things that people have been writing about a bunch on the internet. So I don’t need to reinvent the wheel and can just start with the most common check list.
- Protect me from rabbit holes. Because I don’t need to open up a ton of tabs for different searches or services like Pinterest, it helps me keep me focused (if I want to ;))
- It helped me discover new ideas. Based on the context it picks up over the conversations it can introduce new options or combinations I hadn’t considered.
I love seeing how these emerging “AI” technologies like ChatGPT can be utilized in the mundane, everyday tasks like simplifying parenting tasks. It can save time and reduce mental load, allowing to pick the areas where one wants to spend their creative energy on. While it won’t solve everything, it can definitely help you get started, get unstuck and open up creative possibilities you hadn’t considered.