Tell AI how to think, not just what to do

What you need

• Any AI chat assistant
• One real task you do often (an email, a product description, a plan)

Steps

1. Give it a role with a point of view

   Instead of “Write a product description”, say who is writing and for whom.

   Before

   Write a description for my handmade candle.

   After

   You are a shop owner who writes short, concrete product copy for busy buyers. Write a description of my handmade soy candle for people choosing a gift. Mention scent, burn time only if I give it, and what makes it a good gift.

2. Ask for a method before the answer

   Ask it to list the steps it will take, then do them. This stops it jumping to a generic answer.

   Before

   Plan my week.

   After

   First, ask me up to five questions about my deadlines and fixed appointments. Then group my tasks by deadline and effort, and only then propose a plan for the week.

3. Make it check its own work against your criteria

   Give the criteria a good answer must meet and ask it to check against them before replying.

   Before

   Write a reply to this customer complaint.

   After

   Write a reply to this complaint. It must: apologise once, state what we will do and by when, avoid blaming the customer, and be under 120 words. Before you answer, check the draft against each point and fix anything that fails.

What you end up with

You get answers that fit your situation more often, and when they don’t, you can see which instruction to change.

Common mistakes

• Packing ten instructions into one sentence — use short lines or a list.
• Asking it to “be creative” and “be accurate” at once without saying which matters more.
• Pasting customers’ personal data into a tool whose data terms you haven’t read.