Hey,

Yeah, it’s not a search engine, yet still, most people use it like that.

They ask questions from ChatGPT, like they would search on Google.

For example:

“How do I make a chocolate cupcake?”

“What is the difference between Gemini and Claude?”

“When was Rome built?”

And even though it will give you a satisfying answer, it’s a huge mistake to use it like this.

You are only using 1% of its capabilities if you do this.

Here’s what to do instead:

1/ Instead of questions, think in terms of instructions.

You have tasks.

Lots of them.

Write an email to X about the event next week. Draft that client proposal. Modify the contract.

Stuff like these.

First, just give these to ChatGPT, and see what it says.

A golden prompt you can give is to say

“Before responding, ask me any clarifying questions about information you need.”

So prompt ChatGPT to prompt you.

This will make you feed it’s context window and will boost the quality of responses by a lot!

2/ Give it a persona

If you could HIRE ANYONE in the world to do this task for you, who would it be?

Direct-response copywriter or educational blog post writer? - huge difference

Project manager or Chief of Staff? - another huge difference

and the list goes on and on.

You can make ChatGPT act like ANYONE, no matter how expensive they might be.

3/ Define good response

Tell ChatGPT what the ideal outcome looks like.

Similar to how you have to tell a colleague or employee when you are satisfied with a task they do, you gotta do the same thing with AI.

Here’s an example on how I did this, even though I was only using ChatGPT to get information about a hobby of mine, not a work use case:

How is the balance of performance done in GT3 racing? Explain in detail everything you know and give a long response.

I did this on purpose to make it avoid generalizations.

Then, after it’s response I sent this follow up prompt:

Okay, so if I’m sitting in race control and I’m responsible for BOP, what kind of data am I looking at? How am I making the decisions? Please explain with data examples. Show me a few different cars and any kind of data that these people are looking at and tell me how they make these decisions.

By the end of the second prompt, I had a clear idea on everything I wanted to know.

For work you could modify the prompt to get information on any topic, and ask it to act as a subject matter expert (like a person sitting in race control).

But once you have all this information, don’t stop.

4/ Design the conversation

It is your job to guide ChatGPT to the treasure.

Especially when you are doing a hard task that’s impossible to complete with a single prompt.

You must always have a plan for the conversation.

Here’s an example on how I think about this:

Let’s say, I want to create a workshop about Prompt Engineering, so my final ideal output are two things: A slideshow for the workshop and a supplementary workbook.

Good luck prompting that with one prompt!

So first, I’ll make it feed it’s own context window about workshop creation:

Act as a professional education workshop creator and tell me what are the most important principles to follow when designing workshops.

Response: key principles that I should follow

Okay, now act as a professional prompt engineering tutor, and use the principles above to create a skeleton for the workshop. Use these notes below [copy-paste my prompt engineering notes - I don’t have to do that because it’s stored in a knowledge base, so I just say - query knowledge base]

Response: workshop skeleton with when I’m teaching what.

Now Act as a TED talk slide designer, and create the first 3 slides for the presentation

Response: first 3 slides.

Here I check in and see if the slides are good enough. If not, I add my principles on how I want the slides to come out (see point 3/ in this newsletter)

For example:

Redo the first 3 slides, and make sure they only contain a maximum of 5 words and 1 graphic per slide. No sentences allowed, unless they are a workshop exercise prompt that attendees MUST read. Separate Heading slides from Body slides. Make sure your entre slideshow tells a story.

Then I have a few more different slides. If it’s good, I’ll just say, okay continue with the next slides, and keep saying continue until it’s done.

Now we need the workbook:

Now act as a professional educational workshop workbook creator, and using the slides and notes above, create a workbook that allows people to keep their exercise responses in one document, and also leaves room for taking notes.

This is a nested prompt that refers to all information in the chat.

I also did a few Persona Switches and used Narrowing and Broadening scope prompts as well.

This entire process is what we coined as Conversation Design, which builds on the knowledge from Prompt Engineering, and takes that skill to a whole new level.

We teach this in our new 2024 Prompt Master AI course, so if you want to master this skill and save a lot more time in your work, become a Prompt Master today!

Think faster - Promptmaster (it rhymes lol)

Dave

P.S: Our landing page for the course is not yet fully optimized and might not contain all the features and benefits of the course. So if you have any questions, feel free to reply to this email and we’ll get back to you asap.

‍