Workflow / decision guides
Use ChatGPT Projects to Keep a Recurring Decision Log
Summary
Cihan's view: Create one ChatGPT Project for a recurring review, add only approved notes, and set instructions that preserve dates, owners, and unknowns. Ask for a decision log, then check each row against the source before the next meeting, correcting the draft before anyone treats it as the record.
A recurring review gets messy when each week starts in a new chat. Decisions sit in one file, open questions in another, and somebody eventually asks, “What did we actually agree?”
ChatGPT Projects can keep related chats, files, and project instructions together. That makes them a reasonable home for a small decision log. It does not make the log authoritative. Your source notes and human review still decide what happened.
Reader and decision: You are an operations or project manager deciding whether a draft decision log is accurate enough to use as a meeting starting point. The artifact is a source-linked table. The decision is whether to keep the draft, correct it, or return to the notes.
Evidence label: Documentation-based and illustrative. OpenAI documents Projects, project files, project instructions, and project memory. The notes and output below are fictional. No ChatGPT run or personal test is claimed.
What you need
- A signed-in ChatGPT account with Projects available. Availability and file limits depend on your plan and workspace.
- Three approved fictional review notes in PDF, DOCX, or plain text form.
- Permission to place the notes in the selected ChatGPT workspace.
- A human owner who can confirm decisions, owners, dates, and unresolved points.
Do not upload confidential notes unless your organisation allows that account and workspace to handle them.
Fictional input pack
Create three small files with this content.
review-2026-10-07.txt
Customer portal review, 7 October 2026
Decision: Keep the pilot open for two more weeks.
Owner: Maya Chen
Due date: 21 October 2026
Open question: Which support queue receives weekend alerts?review-2026-10-14.txt
Customer portal review, 14 October 2026
Proposal: Move the pilot review to 28 October because weekend alert routing is not settled.
Decision status: Proposed, not approved.
Owner for routing question: Leon Parkreview-2026-10-21.txt
Customer portal review, 21 October 2026
Decision: The group agreed to move the pilot review to 28 October 2026.
Open question: The notes do not name the final weekend alert queue.The deliberate conflict matters. The 14 October note contains a proposal. The 21 October note contains the later decision. A useful log should show both rather than silently rewriting history.
Set up the Project
- In ChatGPT, choose New project in the sidebar and name it
Customer portal review. - Add the three fictional files to the Project sources.
- Open Project settings and add these instructions:
You are preparing a reviewable decision log from the files in this Project.
Use only the supplied files. For every row, include:
- date
- type: decision, proposal, open question, or factual update
- exact short source quote
- owner, if explicitly named
- due date, if explicitly named
- status: confirmed, proposed, unresolved, or conflicting
Never turn a proposal into a decision. Never infer an owner or date. If two notes differ, show both and explain which later note changes the status. Mark missing information as unknown. Do not recommend an action unless I ask for one.- Start a chat inside the Project and paste the prompt below.
Create a decision log from all three files.
Return a Markdown table with these columns:
Date | Type | Item | Source quote | Owner | Due date | Status
Then add:
1. Conflicts or changes between notes
2. Open questions with no named owner
3. A five-line review checklist for a human owner
Use exact dates from the files. Do not add facts that are not present.- Read the result beside the source files. Do not treat a tidy table as proof that the source was understood.
Illustrative output
A useful output would look like this:
| Date | Type | Item | Source quote | Owner | Due date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Oct 2026 | Decision | Keep the pilot open for two more weeks | “Keep the pilot open for two more weeks.” | Maya Chen | 21 Oct 2026 | Confirmed in source |
| 14 Oct 2026 | Proposal | Move the pilot review to 28 Oct | “Proposal: Move the pilot review to 28 October” | Leon Park for routing question | Unknown | Proposed |
| 21 Oct 2026 | Decision | Move the pilot review to 28 Oct | “The group agreed to move the pilot review to 28 October 2026.” | Unknown | 28 Oct 2026 | Confirmed in later source |
| 21 Oct 2026 | Open question | Final weekend alert queue | “The notes do not name the final weekend alert queue.” | Unknown | Unknown | Unresolved |
This is an illustrative artifact, not a claimed model output. The important detail is the last row. The missing queue remains visible instead of becoming an invented assignment.
Acceptance checks
Before using the log in a meeting, check that:
- All three file dates appear.
- The 14 October proposal is not labelled as an approved decision.
- The 21 October decision is present with 28 October 2026.
- Maya Chen and Leon Park are not swapped.
- The weekend alert queue remains unresolved.
- Every row has a source quote that a reviewer can find in the input.
If one check fails, correct the table from the notes. Do not ask for a more confident summary and assume the problem is solved.
Troubleshooting
The Project uses an older answer. Ask for the source filename and quote for every row. If the answer still cites an old version, remove outdated files and upload the approved set again.
A proposal appears as a decision. Add the sentence “A proposal is never a decision without an explicit later approval” to the Project instructions, then regenerate and check the row manually.
The owner column contains guesses. Keep the rule that an owner must be explicitly named. Replace inferred names with Unknown.
Your controls look different. OpenAI says Project features and file limits vary by plan and workspace. Use the controls visible in your account, and do not assume a missing option is available.
The notes contain confidential information. Stop. Check your organisation’s policy and the account’s data controls before uploading anything.
Verdict
USE ChatGPT Projects when a small, recurring review needs a shared source pack and a repeatable extraction rule. SKIP it as the system of record. Keep the approved notes and the human-reviewed decision log in the place your team already treats as authoritative.
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