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If you only learn ten habits, learn these, in this order. Each one takes about a minute to try. Tick them off as you go; your progress stays in this browser.
Ask the AI to improve your prompt before you use it
Paste your rough prompt and ask the AI to rewrite it. You get a sharper request, and it tells you what it was missing.
Before you answer it, rewrite it into a better prompt. Add what you'd need to know to do a great job, and list any questions you have for me.
Brief the AI like a smart colleague on their first day
Say who it's for, what it's for and what good looks like. Three short lines of context beat any clever wording.
Summarize the attached report for my director, who has five minutes before a budget meeting.
Tell the AI to ask you questions before it starts
Add one line asking it to check what it needs to know first. You answer a few quick questions and skip a round of rewrites.
Before you write anything, ask me up to five questions about what you'd need to know to get this right. Ask them all at once, then wait for my answers.
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Say what shape you want the answer in
Ask for a table, five bullets or 100 words and you get it. Leave it out and you get whatever the AI picks.
Give me a table with one row per vendor and these columns: yearly cost, setup time, support hours, and the biggest drawback.
Show the AI one example of what you want
Paste one sample of a good result and it copies the pattern. An example explains tone and layout faster than a paragraph of instructions.
Here's one we already published that I like. Match its length, tone and layout:
Tell the AI who to be when it reviews your work
Give it a role, like a skeptical finance lead or a first-time customer, and its feedback gets sharper and more specific.
Act as a skeptical finance lead reviewing the proposal below. Your job is to protect the budget, and you've seen plenty of plans that overpromise.
Paste the source and tell the AI to stick to it
Give it the actual document and say "work only from this." Add "if it isn't in the text, say so" and it stops filling gaps with guesses.
Below is our remote work policy. Using only this document, answer these questions:
Reply with specific feedback instead of starting over
When the first answer misses, say exactly what to change in the same chat. It keeps what worked and fixes what didn't.
Close. Keep the structure and the opening line. Three changes:
Ask for three different options, then pick one
One answer gives you nothing to compare. Ask for three distinct versions, choose the best, and refine from there.
Give me three subject lines for an email asking customers to fill out a five-minute satisfaction survey.
Ask the AI what it's unsure about
End with "what should I double-check?" and it points to the claims, numbers and guesses you need to verify before you use the answer.
Then add a section called "Check before you share" that lists:
Finished all ten? Browse every tip by task or build a prompt for something you're doing today.