7 ChatGPT Prompts That Make You Smarter, Not Just Faster

Move beyond the hype and unlock deeper thinking.

Ten years ago, if you had wandered into a half-hidden corner of Goethe University’s wooden library, you would have found me, supposed to be studying for my macroeconomics exam, but instead procrastinating. I was flipping through old journals when an essay titled Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren caught my eye. Its bold prediction seemed almost absurd at the time. Yet today, it shapes how I think.

In 1930, at the height of the Great Depression, economist John Maynard Keynes set out to “disembarrass” himself “of short views and take wings into the future.” While the world around him was crumbling with unemployment soaring and factories shutting down, Keynes envisioned a world where technological progress would erase scarcity itself.

Machines would handle the heavy lifting. Humans would only need to work 15 hours a week to meet their needs. Our biggest problem would be figuring out what to do with all the leisure time. Keynes was observing a long arc already in motion:

• The Industrial Revolution had shifted production from hand to machines.

• Factories had replaced workshops, scaling output exponentially.

• New technologies such as steam, electricity, and mechanization had made labor more productive.

"If this continues," he predicted, "within a century, humanity will be free from the economic problem of survival."

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The Future Keynes Didn’t See

Back in 2015, reading those words, I smiled. It felt hopelessly naïve compared to the hustle-mode life I was living, working for a scale-up.

Now, in 2025, I see it differently.

We are five years away from Keynes' imagined 2030. And a century-shaping technological leap is happening. In just the past year, AI’s cognitive abilities (measured imperfectly, but tellingly) jumped from an IQ of 96 to 136. That’s going from “smarter than 39% of humans” to “smarter than 99%.”

And yet, the real question isn't about AI's IQ. It's about ours.

Source: Maxim Lott, citing this source.

Are we getting smarter or just moving faster?

When I scroll through LinkedIn today, watching hypefluencers churn out AI hacks, I see the trap Keynes never could have anticipated.

He imagined machines freeing our bodies. He didn't imagine them accelerating our already tech-scattered minds.

The first trap with AI is also the most tempting: Using it to speed things up without ever asking if you're speeding toward anything meaningful.

Draft emails faster. Generate content faster. Summarize articles faster.

Faster is seductive because it feels productive. But faster without direction doesn’t sharpen your mind; it scatters it. You’re accelerating a car without ever checking the map.

The smartest AI users I know aren’t asking, "How can I get this done quicker?"
They're asking, "How can I think better about what I’m doing?"

Not to pump out more LinkedIn carousels, rack up more followers, or churn faster through already crowded feeds. But to carve out space for clearer thinking. Deeper questioning. Better decisions.

You won’t fix the bigger system overnight. Neither will I.

But you can start with your own mind — and how you choose to work with these new tools, rather than just through them. Here’s how.

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7 AI Prompts That Sharpen Thinking (Not Just Output)

The right prompt isn’t a magic spell. It’s a way of focusing your attention, forcing clearer thinking, and revealing ideas you might not see on your own.

Think of the following prompts as a menu, not a checklist. You don’t have to use them all. Some will resonate now. Others might speak to a different season of your work or life.

Use it not to rush through a task, but to stretch your thinking a little further than you might on your own.

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🛠 The Leverage Lens

When to use this prompt: When you feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start.

Prompt: