Most "meh" AI answers happen because the request was vague. These 5 lines fix that. You don't have to pick between them, and you don't have to remember them. Read what each one does, then copy the whole set at the bottom and paste it once at the top of your chat. Every answer after that comes back tighter.
Takes 2 minutes. You need: any AI chat. You end with: one block saved that makes every future answer better.
What each line is doing
1. Ask me anything you need before you answer. The single best line for anything important. It gathers the context it's missing instead of guessing and handing you something generic. This is the one that fixes the most answers with the least effort.
Here's the difference on a real request, "write my customer thank-you email":
WITHOUT A polished, generic thank-you email. Warm,
professional, could be from any business on earth.
You rewrite most of it.
WITH "Before I write it - is this after a first purchase
or a repeat one? Do you want them to do something
next, or is this purely a thank-you? And how do you
normally sign off?"Three questions, ten seconds to answer, and the draft comes back nearly sendable. That's the whole trade.
2. Keep it under 150 words. Stops the wall of text. Forces it to give you the answer, not an essay about the answer.
3. Give me the steps, not the theory. Turns a lecture into a checklist you can act on today.
4. Match my tone. This is the difference between AI that sounds like a robot and AI that sounds like you. It needs an example to work from, so paste something you have written and it will follow that voice. Works especially well for emails and captions.
5. Show me what you'd cut. Run this on anything you have written. It finds the fluff, so your message gets shorter and stronger.
The whole set, in one prompt
Paste this once at the start of a chat. You can also drop it into your custom instructions and never think about it again.
1. Ask me any questions you need before you answer, until you are confident you understand what I actually want.
2. Keep answers under 150 words unless I ask for more.
3. Give me the steps, not the theory.
4. If I paste something I have written, match my tone instead of using your own default voice.
5. When I ask you to look at my writing, tell me what you would cut and why.
The power move: build a voice profile once
Line 4 works, but it forgets. The upgrade is to make your voice a thing you saved rather than something you re-establish every time.
Paste in three pieces of your own writing — an email you were happy with, a caption, and something you wrote when you were slightly annoyed — then:
Save what comes back. Now "match my tone" becomes "follow my voice rules," and it works on the first try, in any chat, forever. The third sample matters: nobody's voice is only their polished writing.
2 bonus lines
Add either of these to the set above when they fit what you are doing.
Give me 3 options, then your recommendation. For decisions, when you want to see the trade-offs before someone picks for you.
Explain it like I have never done this before. For anything you are learning and don't want to fake your way through.
When it goes sideways
"It asks too many questions now." Cap it: "Ask me at most three questions, then make sensible assumptions and tell me what you assumed." You get the benefit without the interrogation.
"150 words is too short for real work." It's a default, not a rule. For anything substantial say "ignore the word limit for this one." The limit exists to stop padding on simple questions, not to cripple the useful ones.
"The tone matching sounds like a parody of me." It's copying your quirks too hard. Tell it: "Match my tone, but don't imitate specific phrases from the example. I want the register, not an impression."
"It followed the rules for a while, then drifted." Long chats dilute early instructions. Either start a fresh chat, or paste "reapply the 5 rules from the top of this chat" — or just move the set into custom instructions, where it can't drift.
Make it yours
- Client-facing writing: make line 4 permanent with the voice profile above. It's the one that protects the thing clients actually recognize about you.
- Decisions rather than tasks: swap line 3 for "give me the strongest case against this before you agree with it."
- Learning something new: drop line 2 entirely. Short answers and learning work against each other.
- Working with a team: add "write it so someone who wasn't in the conversation could follow it."
Do this next
Paste the set at the top of your next chat. If it earns its keep once, move it into custom instructions so you never think about it again.
Next guide: Prompt Power Words — short codes you type before a question when you want one specific thing, without pasting the whole set.