Lesson 29 of 32

The Gift of Living Memory

Projects, Gems & GPTs

Standing context is a prompt that never sleeps. Instead of re-introducing yourself at the start of every chat, you write four things once - who you are, how you want answers, what to always do, what to never do - into a saved workspace, and every future conversation there begins halfway up the slope instead of at the foot of it.

Reach for it whenWhen you ask for the same kind of thing more than twice a month - the shop's festival messages, the household accounts, a lesson plan, doubts from one course - and you are tired of typing the same three lines of background first.

Perplexity's version of this is a Space: a saved workspace with its own custom instructions, its own uploaded files and the threads you keep inside it. That carries two-thirds of the gift. What it does not carry is the rest - there is no account-wide memory learning your habits across every conversation, so a Space's instructions apply inside that Space and nowhere else, and a thread you open outside it knows nothing about you. Nor is a Space a finished assistant you can hand to someone the way a GPT or a Gem is; it is a place you work in, not a persona you summon. Used for what it actually is, it is excellent, because the standing context that pays off here is the context that shapes a search: your city, your market, your language, and the kind of source you are willing to accept.

Worth knowingBe clear about where this chapter's examples belong. An ASHA worker's Marathi message, a household budget table and a tutor who follows one professor's notes are writing, arithmetic and teaching - a Space will do all three stiffly, with citations stapled on. The honest division is to keep a Space for the standing research (the current immunisation schedule, this year's electricity tariff, the standard textbook treatment of a topic) and take the findings to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for the writing. The privacy rule is stricter here than anywhere else, too: a Space exists to send your context into live web searches, so a line that sits harmlessly in a Project is a line you have now attached to a search. Describe your trade; never your records.
  • A Space's instructions work inside it only - nothing follows you out.
  • Put the shape of your searches in them: city, language, acceptable sources.
  • Keep the standing research here; take the writing to another tool.
  • Name which sources count - official pages, not coaching sites.
  • Never put records or identifiers in instructions that feed a search.
The Daily Re-introduction vs. The Standing Order

Instead of

Write a message for mothers about vaccination.

Perplexity version

Set up a Space called “Village health - Nashik” and put this in its custom instructions:

> I am an ASHA worker in a village near Nashik, Maharashtra. I need the official position, not general advice. Prefer the National Health Mission, the Maharashtra Department of Public Health, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and WHO - in that order - and link the page you used. If only a news site or a private hospital's blog says something, tell me that is all you found. Never give me a medicine name or a dose; prescribing is not mine to do. Answer in English, and add a plain Marathi version of any sentence I say I will read out to mothers.

Then, inside that Space, the first round of questions:

1. What is the current national immunisation schedule for children under two - which vaccine at which age? Link the official schedule and tell me the date printed on the page.
2. What has changed in that schedule in the last three years, if anything? Cite the circular.
3. What does official guidance say a mother should bring to a vaccination day, and which side effects should she be told to expect?

I will take these facts to another tool and write the actual WhatsApp message in Marathi there.
Open Perplexity 1,203 characters

Then loop it

  1. Narrow it. For the [date] session we are giving only the measles-rubella dose: what does official guidance say about that one - age, interval to the second dose, what to tell a mother about fever afterwards? Cite the schedule page itself, not a summary of it.
  2. Two of your sources disagree on the interval. Show me both, say which is the more official, and tell me what the Maharashtra state page says.
  3. Save this thread in the Space. Then list the three facts in it I should re-check every year, because those are the ones that will change under me.

Why it worksThe standing context here shapes the search rather than the voice: the Space's instructions fix which sources count as official, so each month's facts arrive with a link, and the message itself is written elsewhere.

The Monthly Restart vs. The Saved Gem

Instead of

Help me with my household budget.

Perplexity version

Use this for the prices behind the budget, not for the budget itself. A tool that answers with citations will not keep a running household table for you, and it should never be shown an account.

Make a Space called “Kozhikode household costs” with these custom instructions:

> Family of five in Kozhikode, Kerala. I want current, local, sourced figures in rupees, each with the date of its source. Prefer official pages - KSEB, the Kerala civil supplies department, the oil companies' own tariff pages - over aggregators and over anything undated. Where you can only find a range, give the range and say how old the data is. Never ask me for bank, card or UPI details; I will not paste a statement or a bill.

First round of questions in that Space:

1. What is the current KSEB domestic tariff structure and slab rates for Kerala? Link the official tariff order and give its date.
2. What is the present price of a domestic LPG refill in Kozhikode? Cite the oil company or distributor page.
3. Has anything been reported in the last six months on school fee ceilings or retail food prices in Kerala that a household would actually feel? Cite the coverage, and say plainly if it is thin.

Then give me a short sourced summary I can take to another tool to build the monthly table.
Open Perplexity 1,282 characters

Then loop it

  1. Your tariff answer mixed a news report in with the official order. Drop the report and tell me only what the order itself says, slab by slab.
  2. Now compare. At roughly 250 units a month, what should a family of five expect to pay for electricity by those official slabs, and where does that sit against the reported Kerala average? Cite both.
  3. Save the thread in the Space, and list which of these figures to re-check each quarter. The monthly table stays in another tool - I come back here only when a price moves.

Why it worksA Space can hold the standing context that makes a search local and official, but not a running household ledger - so the sourced prices are gathered here and the table is kept where it can be edited.

The Generic Tutor vs. The Course Project

Instead of

Explain this topic from my course.

Perplexity version

Make a Space called “Data structures - sources”, upload my syllabus and lecture notes to it, and put this in its custom instructions:

> Second-year computer science student. I am after the standard, citable treatment of each topic, so that I can tell what my course expects apart from what the field says. Prefer textbooks, university course pages and papers, and name the book and chapter or the university. Keep a short Python example in any explanation. Never write out a solution to a graded assignment, even if I ask for one; give me the approach and the first step.

First questions in that Space:

1. From my uploaded week 4 notes: which hash-table topics does my course actually cover, and which does it skip?
2. For each topic it covers, what is the standard treatment in a well-known textbook or a university course? Cite the book and chapter, or the course page.
3. Where my notes and the standard treatment differ - in terminology, or in the collision method taught - set them side by side and say which is the more widely used.

I will take all of this to another tool for the patient explanation and the practice questions.
Open Perplexity 1,138 characters

Then loop it

  1. Narrow to open addressing. What do the cited sources say about load factor thresholds in practice, and do they agree? Show me the disagreement rather than averaging it away.
  2. My lab sheet asks me to implement a hash map. Do not solve it. Find me two cited public explanations of the approach, and one worked example that is not my assignment.
  3. Save the thread. Term is ending - tell me which uploaded files to replace for next term's Algorithms course, and write the Space instructions I will need for it.

Why it worksThe uploaded notes and the standing instructions turn this into a sourcing exercise - what the course covers, and what the field says about it - with the teaching itself done in a tool built for explaining.

Loop it

Loop on your standing instructions just as you loop on a prompt. After writing them, open a new chat and ask a typical question. Read the answer against your four headings: did it use your language, length and format? Did it break a Never? If so, change the instruction itself rather than correcting every chat - make the line more definite. Repeat until three test questions come back right. Then, every month, review what is stored: delete stale facts, finished projects and anything private that should never have been saved.