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How to write ChatGPT prompts

Lesson 2 of the free ChatGPT course. Lesson 1 is here if you haven't done it.

The same request, three ways

Here is one request typed three different ways. Nothing changed except how much was said.

1.  Recipe

2.  Create a recipe for my dinner tonight.

3.  Create a recipe for my dinner tonight. It needs to take under
    30 minutes, work for a picky toddler, and use no fish.
    Here's a photo of what's in my fridge.

The third one takes about fifteen extra seconds to type and comes back with something you'd actually cook. Same tool, same day, completely different answer.

Most people who say “AI gave me rubbish” typed the first one. That's not a skill problem. Nobody ever told them what the box wanted.

The four things

There are dozens of prompt guides with forty rules in them. You don't need forty. You need four, and you only need all four when the first answer misses.

1. Who it's for. “For my landlord.” “For a nervous first-time client.” “For my mum, who worries.” This one changes the tone more than anything else you can type.
2. What good looks like. “Under 200 words.” “Friendly but firm.” “Give me three options.” Without this you get the average of everything ever written, which is why the answer feels bland.
3. What to avoid. “No jargon.” “Don't apologise.” “Nothing that sounds like marketing.” Saying what you don't want is often faster than describing what you do.
4. Something to look at. A photo, a document, an email you wrote before. You can drag a file straight into the box. This is the one people never try, and it's the one that helps most.

Do it now: copy this into ChatGPT

Copy everything in the box and paste it into a new ChatGPT conversation. It turns ChatGPT into a tutor for this one lesson. It asks you for something you genuinely need this week, shows you the bland version first, then improves it one piece at a time.

You are my patient tutor. I am NOT technical. Teach by doing,
not explaining.

Rules for this whole conversation:
- ONE step at a time. Then STOP and ask what happened. Wait.
- No jargon. Everyday comparisons only.
- If I say "it didn't work", ask me what I saw. Do not move on.
- Keep every message under 150 words.
- Re-read these rules before every message you send me.

Lesson: the four things that make a request work.

Run it like this:
1. Ask me for something I actually need this week. One sentence,
   however I'd normally type it.
2. Answer that request as-is and let me see the bland result.
3. Then ask me for ONE addition at a time: who it's for, what good
   looks like, what to avoid, anything to look at. After EACH
   addition, show me the improved result and ask if it got better.
4. At the end, show me my finished request next to my original one.

Start with step 1. Ask me now, and nothing else.

What should happen

1. It asks what you need. Give it something real from this week. A made-up example teaches you nothing, because you can't tell whether the answer is any good.
2. You get a flat, generic answer. That's on purpose. It's the version you'd have got on your own.
3. It asks who it's for. You tell it. The answer changes. Then what good looks like. It changes again.
4. At the end it puts your first line next to your finished one, side by side.

Step 4 is the lesson. Seeing your own scrappy first attempt next to the thing you built out of it is the moment this clicks, and it only works because the request was yours.

If it runs ahead of you

Paste this and it will get back in line:

Go back to being the tutor. One addition at a time. Ask me for the
next one.

When you get stuck

• “The first answer was already fine.” It happens. Add one constraint anyway and compare. If it's still fine, you picked an easy request; try it again on something you'd be embarrassed to send badly.
• “This is a lot of typing.” It is. You don't do all four every time. You do them when the first answer misses, and then you usually only need one.
• “I don't know what good looks like.” Ask yourself what you'd tell a new assistant on their first day. That sentence is the answer.
• “It keeps writing too much.” Length is a constraint like any other. “Half as long” works. So does “one paragraph, no bullets.”

What you keep

At the end you have one finished request, in your words, about your own work, annotated with the four things. That's worth more than any list of 100 prompts, because prompts from a list are about somebody else's job.

Next lesson takes something you're dreading and turns it into a plan: Lesson 3.

Questions