Does it really matter if you open a new chat in ChatGPT or if you just keep working in the old chat which is getting longer and longer? Actually it matters—a lot!

Did you know that with every question that you send to ChatGPT the complete history of your current chat is sent to ChatGPT again? It is like an e-mail conversation where all previous messages are kept with each new mail. The problem: ChatGPT processes the entire previous conversation—every time.

The problem is: The longer your current chat history, the more words are fed into ChatGPT with each new prompt and—the less intelligent ChatGPT may be.

Why is this a problem?

Limited input size: If you use the free version, you usually have a limited number of words before there is a waiting period. So you should really keep your input short. A long chat history means a long input with every new question.

Cut-Off: If if you as a user don’t have a limit, the ChatGPT model has a limit when it comes to input size. So it will cut off the oldest parts of your chat history if your history is longer than this limit. This may not be a problem (if these old parts are not relevant) but you should know that this can happen.

Quality of intelligence: Most importantly, the longer the chat history, the more difficult it is for ChatGPT to focus its attention on the relevant parts. More irrelevant input means more distraction means less intelligence. In the world of Machine Learning this is referred to as “garbage in, garbage out”. To put it simply: The longer the chat history, the less intelligent the answer (possibly).

Tip 1: Always consider a new chat

The first principle: Open a new chat when you start talking about a new topic. Don’t just keep piling everything into one long chat.

The second principle: Even if you continue with a topic, still consider opening a new chat…

• …if your previous conversation has grown long and meandering
• …if your current question is complex and needs a sharp, focused response—requiring a lot of “intelligence

Tip: If you open a new chat but need some information from your current chat, you can ask ChatGPT to provide a summary of your previous conversation. Then, you open a new chat and insert that summary into your very first prompt as context.

Tip 2: Data first, question last

One last piece of advise: If you have a lot of context data, always put your data first and your actual question or instruction at the end. You can use this kind of markings:

CONTEXT START
[PUT YOUR DATA OR CONTEXT INFO HERE]
CONTEXT END
[PUT YOUR QUESTION OR INSTRUCTION HERE]

Tip 3: Pure text is always best

As mentioned above, a lot of context makes it harder for ChatGPT to find the relevant bits and generate an intelligent response. If you upload files like a PDF, an excel table or an image, it requires significant “work” on the part of ChatGPT to “extract” the information in a form that can be understood by it.

While ChatGPT can still deal with this, sometimes to an astonishing degree, remember that the more you pile into your chat history, the harder it gets.

Also, if you can copy-paste relevant text as “text” (not as PDF or excel files) into the chat window, the easier it is for ChatGPT to understand. Pure text is always best. It can make a huge difference.