Your first prompt that actually works

What you'll be able to do afterwards: Write a prompt that gets a usable result on the first attempt, using four parts.

Most disappointing AI results are not the model's fault. They are a request that left out something the reader would obviously have known.

Ask a colleague "write something for the client" and you get something random. Same with a model. The fix is not a secret phrase or a magic word — it is four pieces of information.

1. The task, stated as a verb

Say what you want done, not what you want to talk about.

• Weak: "Our newsletter"
• Better: "Draft a 150-word introduction for our newsletter"

Vague nouns invite the model to guess, and its guess is a generic continuation of a generic phrase. A verb narrows the space enormously.

2. The context it cannot know

This is where nearly all the value is. The model knows nothing about your business, your customer, your constraints or your voice. Anything it needs is your job to supply.

Instead of "write a proposal for the Henderson project", try:

Write a proposal for the Henderson project. They are a 40-person logistics firm, they asked for help cutting invoice processing time, they are cost-sensitive and have been burned by a previous consultancy that over-promised. The proposal goes to their finance director, who has 10 minutes.

Same request, completely different output. The context is not decoration; it is the actual work.

3. The format you want back

If you do not specify, you get prose — usually more of it than you wanted. Say the shape:

• "As a bulleted list of five items, each one sentence."
• "As a table with columns: task, owner, deadline."
• "In three short paragraphs, no headings."

Format instructions are the cheapest improvement available to you. They cost one line and save five minutes of editing.

4. One example of good

If you have a past example that was right, paste it and say "match this". One real example communicates tone, length and structure faster than a paragraph of description.

Here is a past version of this email that worked well: [paste]. Write a new one for the March campaign, same register and length.

This is the single most effective technique for getting consistency, and it is how you make a model sound like your organisation rather than like a model.

The four parts together

A template worth keeping somewhere:

Task: [what to produce, with length] Context: [who it is for, what they care about, what to avoid] Format: [the shape of the output] Example: [paste one that worked, if you have one]

Put that in a note and use it for a week. You will stop writing prompts and start writing briefs.

Two things that matter less than people think

Politeness. "Please" and "thank you" change nothing about the result. Neither does threatening the model, or promising it a reward. These do not hurt, but they are not doing the work.

Persona. "You are a world-class copywriter" sounds powerful and does surprisingly little. "You are writing for a finance director who has 10 minutes and dislikes jargon" does a great deal. The useful version of a persona describes the reader, not the model.

What to do when the result is still wrong

Do not start over. Correct it.

"Closer. Cut the second paragraph entirely, make the ask more direct, and lose the phrase 'leverage synergies'."

Models are much better at revising than at reading your mind. A conversation that converges in three exchanges is normal and fine — the first answer is raw material, not a verdict.

Do this now

Take a piece of writing you already do regularly — a status update, a quote, a follow-up email. Write a brief with all four parts and produce one. Then keep that brief. You have just built your first reusable asset, and it will save you time every week from here.

Next: lesson 3, the five kinds of work this is genuinely good at.