The first answer is the draft. The magic is in the second prompt — tap one to copy it, then paste it as your next message.
Tweak before launching
How to actually talk to AI
The mindset behind every prompt in here. Two minutes that change everything.
Stop using AI like Google
AI isn't a search engine. A search engine looks things up; AI responds to context, detail, tone, and the back-and-forth of a real conversation. Ask a thin question, get a thin answer. Give it something real and the same tool becomes a writing partner, a tutor, a strategist, and a coach. You don't need to be technical — you just need to know how to talk to it.
How it actually works (in 20 seconds)
Modern AI isn't looking answers up in a database — it read a staggering amount of human writing and learned the patterns of language, so when you type, it predicts what a thoughtful reply would look like, a piece at a time. Picture the most well-read friend you have finishing your sentence. That one idea explains everything: it only knows what you tell it, it gets sharper the more you give it, it thrives on back-and-forth — and because it predicts rather than looks up, it can sometimes sound confident and be wrong. So verify anything about your health, money, or legal standing before you act on it.
What prompting is — and isn't
Prompting is just clear communication: briefing a capable assistant in plain English, giving it a role, your real situation, and your goal — then going back and forth until it's right. That's the whole craft.
Prompting isn't magic words or secret codes (clear beats clever), it isn't programming (no syntax to get perfect), it isn't a Google search, and it isn't one-and-done (the first answer is a draft). It can't read your mind and it isn't always right — so you stay the boss. And the prompts in here? Not spells — just well-written briefings someone already filled out for you, so you don't start from a blank page.
The 7 rules
Context changes everything. Tell it your goal, your situation, who it's for, and what you're worried about.
Longer prompts usually win. Explain it the way you would to a coworker. Say more than feels necessary.
The magic is in the follow-up. The first answer is the draft, not the destination. Keep going.
Show, don't just describe. Upload the photo, screenshot, PDF, or paste the actual text. It performs far better when it can see the real thing.
Ask it to push back. "What are the holes in this?" "Argue the opposite side." "Where am I being biased?"
Examples are a superpower. Show it one example of the tone or style you want.
Treat it like a skilled assistant. Think "help me solve this," not "give me an answer."
The second prompt changes everything
The people getting the best results aren't using better software. They're refining the conversation instead of stopping at the first reply. After any answer, try one of these — tap to copy:
Got junk back? Don't start over — steer
Almost every bad answer has a one-line fix. Don't quit; just tell it what went wrong:
Too generic? It doesn't know enough about you yet. "Redo that for my exact situation: [the real details]."
Too long or complicated? "Cut this in half." "Just the three things I actually need to do."
Think it's wrong? "Are you sure? Double-check that." "What's your source?" And verify anything high-stakes yourself.
It refused or got preachy? Add honest context: "I'm the patient and this is my own lab result."
Repeating itself? Long chats forget the start — remind it of the goal, or start a fresh chat and paste in just what matters.
Try talking, not typing
Most AIs have a voice mode now — and not just for commands. Actual conversation. Brainstorm out loud, rehearse a hard conversation before you have it, practice for an interview, or think through something on a drive. Typing creates structure; talking creates flow. If you've only ever typed to AI, try speaking to it once.
Teach it who you are (2 minutes, once)
By default, AI forgets you between chats. But most of the big AIs now have a memory you can fill on purpose — tell it once who you are and every future chat starts warm instead of cold. Try: "Remember this about me: I'm 58, I live in Maryland, I manage a small team, my wife and I play tennis, and I like answers in plain English with the bottom line first." In ChatGPT just say "remember this" (manage it in Settings → Personalization). In Claude, make a Project and put your background in its instructions. In Gemini, look for "Saved info." Share only what you'd be comfortable with — you can view and delete memories anytime — and skip it entirely for sensitive topics.
Show it — don't just describe it
Most AIs can see now, not just read. Instead of typing out your problem, show them the real thing — a photo, a screenshot, a PDF, even a live camera feed — and the answer gets far sharper. Here's how, and which tool does what (capabilities and paid tiers move fast; if you don't see a camera or upload button, update the app).
Photos, screenshots & documents. Tap the +, paperclip, or camera icon and attach a picture, screenshot, or PDF. Nearly every major AI does this now — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, Grok, Meta AI, and (newly) DeepSeek. Claude and Gemini shine on long PDFs; Perplexity runs OCR and takes up to ten files at once.
Video. Some accept a short clip and tell you what happens in it. Gemini is strongest — you can even paste a YouTube link — ChatGPT takes short clips in the mobile app, and Perplexity transcribes audio and video. Most others still stick to still images.
Live camera & screen. A few watch in real time while you talk: open voice mode, tap the camera, and point your phone. ChatGPT, Gemini Live, Microsoft Copilot, and Grok all do live camera; ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot can also watch your screen. Meta AI does it hands-free through Ray-Ban glasses. Claude, Perplexity, and DeepSeek don't do a live feed yet — just snap a photo and share that.
However you show it, tell the AI what to look at and what you want — don't assume it knows why you sent it. "Read the highlighted line in this photo and explain it in plain English." "Look at the second screenshot — what's causing this error?" On live camera: "I'm pointing at my water heater — what does this blinking light mean?" Name the attachment, point to the exact part, and say your goal in the same breath.
Pick a prompt, fill in the blanks, and send it to your AI — plus how to add photos.
The four steps
Pick a prompt. Browse the list on the left, or use the All / Favorites / Recent tabs and the category buttons to find one. Tap it to open.
Fill in the blanks. Each prompt has a few boxes — your situation, your goal, the details. The more you give it, the better the answer. You can leave boxes empty if they don't apply.
Copy it or open it in your AI. Watch your finished prompt build itself in real time, then send it (see the next section).
Keep the conversation going. The first answer is the draft. Tap a follow-up like “Make it simpler” or “What am I missing?” to copy it, then paste it as your next message.
Don't know where to start? Your first week
Seventy-two prompts is a lot of menu. If you're new, just do one of these a day for five days — by Friday, using AI will feel normal:
Day 1 — Search the Web (Better Than Google) (#2). Ask something you'd normally Google and feel the difference.
Day 2 — Catch Me Up (#47). Feed it a long email thread or document and get the point in 30 seconds.
Day 3 — Rewrite & Polish Anything (#19). Take a message you'd send anyway and make it better.
Day 4 — Fix My Day (#28). Hand it your overwhelming to-do list and get a plan.
Day 5 — Money Clarity (#7). The one that surprises people. Ten honest minutes.
Two ways to send your prompt
Open it directly (one tap). The top row — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok — opens that AI with your prompt already typed in. Just hit send. The ★ marks the AI best suited to that prompt, but all of them work.
Copy & paste. The “Using one of these instead?” row — Copilot, Meta AI, DeepSeek, Mistral — can't take the prompt from a link. Hit Copy prompt, open the site, and paste it in (⌘/Ctrl+V). The prompt is copied to your clipboard automatically as a backup either way.
Tweak before you send
Under the prompt you'll find quick tweaks — Make shorter, Make warmer, Make more direct, As a checklist, Ask me one question at a time. Tap any of them and they're added to the prompt instantly. Tap again to turn them off.
Adding a photo or screenshot to ChatGPT (or any AI)
Lots of these prompts get far better answers when the AI can see the real thing — a bill, a rash, a screenshot of an error, a contract, a fridge full of food. Here's how to attach one:
On your phone. Open the chat. Tap the ＋ or 📎 paperclip icon next to where you type. Choose Photo Library (pick an existing picture), Camera (take one now), or Files (for a PDF). Pick the image, then type what you want — “What does this say?” — and send.
On a computer. Click the ＋ or paperclip near the message box and choose a file, or just drag the image straight onto the chat. You can also copy an image and paste it with ⌘/Ctrl+V.
Where the button is by app.ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, Meta AI → the ＋ or paperclip by the text box. Claude → the paperclip, great for long PDFs. Perplexity → the paperclip; it can take up to ten files at once. DeepSeek → the paperclip (newer feature). If you don't see the button, update the app.
Use Prompt Mode together with the photo. Copy your filled-in prompt here first, paste it into the chat, attach the photo in the same message, and send them together — so the AI reads your instructions and looks at the picture at once.
Tell it what to look at. Don't assume it knows why you sent it. Say “Read the highlighted line and explain it in plain English” or “Look at this screenshot — what's causing the error?” Point to the exact part and say your goal in the same breath.
Writing your own prompt
The 72 prompts in this book cover a lot, but not your whole life. When you find yourself typing the same kind of request over and over, turn it into a prompt of your own. It ends up sitting right beside the built-in ones, with the same fill-in blanks and the same Copy and Send buttons.
To start: tap the + button in the bar at the very top of the screen, beside How to and Learn. A form opens with red instructions at the top and a numbered box for each part. Work down it in order.
1 — Give it a role. One line, starting with “Act as a…”. “Act as a patient songwriting coach.” This is the single highest-value line in the whole prompt: it decides which kind of expert answers you. Don't skip it — the app won't let you save without it.
2 — Hand it your situation. What you're trying to do, who it's for, and what you're worried about. Say more than feels necessary. This is usually where your blanks go (see below).
3 — Say exactly what you want back. Describe the shape of the answer, not just the topic: “Start with the bottom line in one sentence. Then give me: 1) three options, 2) the risk in each, 3) what you'd pick and why.” A numbered list here is what stops the AI rambling.
4 — Set the guardrails. The tone you want, anything it must not do, and what to do when it isn't sure — “if you don't know, say so instead of guessing.”
As you type, the right-hand side shows Finished prompt — your four boxes stitched together, exactly what gets sent. The parts are joined with a blank line between them, and anything you leave empty is simply left out.
Adding blanks to your prompt
A blank is a question the app asks you before it builds the prompt — the same fill-in boxes you use on the built-in prompts. Add one for every detail that changes each time you run it, so you're never editing the prompt itself again.
Tap “+ Add a blank.” Type the question you want to be asked — “Who is this song for?”
Pick the answer type.Short answer for a word or a number, Long answer for a paragraph, Pick from a list when there are set choices (then type the choices underneath).
Add help text if the question needs explaining. It shows in small grey type under the question, the same as on the built-in prompts.
Tap Insert. This is the step people miss. Insert drops the blank into your prompt as its own short paragraph — your question as a label, then the tag that gets replaced by your answer:
Who is this song for: [who_is_this_song_for]
That label is what tells the AI what it's reading, which is exactly how all 72 prompts in this book are written. The button tells you where it's going — “Insert into step 2” — and follows whichever box you last typed in, so click into the box you want first.
Each blank shows a green ✓ in your prompt once its tag is placed. If it says not in your prompt yet in red, the app won't let you save — that blank would ask you a question and then throw your answer away. Either tap Insert, or delete the blank.
Once a tag is placed you can reword the question freely — the tag stays put, and the label in your prompt updates to match. If you've rewritten that label yourself, your wording is left alone. Use the ▲▼ arrows to reorder blanks, and ✕ to remove one.
Leave a blank empty when you run the prompt and it disappears cleanly — its label goes with it, so the AI never sees a dangling question with no answer.
Finishing and saving your prompt
Title. Name it the way you'd search for it later.
Category. Pick one of the book's categories so it files itself alongside the built-in prompts. You can't invent new ones — that keeps the category buttons from turning into a mess.
When to use it. A one-line reminder of the moment you'd reach for this.
Pro tip. Optional. Anything you want to tell yourself next time, shown under the finished prompt.
Save prompt. It lands in your ✎ Mine tab, marked with a ✎ instead of a number, and works exactly like the built-in 72.
Open one of your prompts and you'll see ✎ Edit, ⧉ Duplicate, and 🗑 Delete. Editing reopens the same four numbered boxes you wrote it in.
Starting from one of the 72
The easiest way to write your first prompt is not to start from scratch. Open any built-in prompt, tap ⧉ Make my own copy, and you get the whole thing — text, blanks and all — as a prompt of your own to change however you like. The original is untouched.
Because the built-in prompts weren't written in the four-box form, a copy opens as one single text box instead of four. Everything else works the same.
Where your prompts are saved
Your prompts are saved on the device you wrote them on, and — if you're signed in on the website — to your account, so they follow you to any other computer or phone you sign in on.
Look at the bottom of the ✎ Mine tab. It tells you exactly which of those is happening: “3 prompts · synced to you@example.com” or “3 prompts · saved on this device.”
Prompts follow the account, not the computer. If you have more than one email address, sign in with the same one everywhere. Signing in with a different email shows you that account's prompts — which may be none. Check the email at the bottom of the Mine tab if a prompt seems to be missing.
Give it a moment. Prompts sync when you sign in and again each time you save. If a new prompt hasn't appeared on your other computer, reload the page there.
Signed out, offline, or using the downloaded file? Everything still works — your prompts just stay in that browser.
Backup and Restore at the bottom of the Mine tab save your prompts to a file and load them back. Worth doing before you clear your browser data, and the way to move prompts between two different accounts.
Saving and finding prompts
Favorites. Tap the ☆ on any prompt to save it to your Favorites tab.
Recent. Prompts you've opened show up under the Recent tab automatically.
Search. Tap the magnifying glass in the top bar, then type any word — it looks through titles, categories, and the prompts themselves, so "gift card" finds the scam prompt even though those words aren't in its title. Several words all have to match, in any order.
Sort. Use the Sort control to switch between Book order (the numbering in the book), A–Z, and By category, which groups the list under category headings. Your choice is remembered.
Categories. Tap a category button (Personal Safety, Health, Money…) to filter the list to one kind of prompt.
Your inputs are saved. What you type stays on this device. Use the trash icon up top to clear everything (inputs, favorites, recents).
Light or dark. Tap the sun/moon icon to switch themes.
Read this first — how to build a prompt that works
All 72 prompts in this book are built from the same four parts, in this order. Yours should be too.
Give it a role. Open with “Act as a ___.” — “Act as a personal safety and scam-detection expert.” One line, and it sets the lens the AI thinks through.
Hand it your situation. Your goal, who it’s for, and what you’re worried about. Anything you’d have to retype next time should be a blank — add those below and drop them into your text.
Say exactly what you want back. Name the shape of the answer: “Start with the bottom line in one sentence. Then give me: 1) … 2) … 3) …” A fixed output contract is what stops the AI wandering.
Set the guardrails. The tone you want, what it must not do, and what to do when it isn’t sure — “if you don’t know, say so instead of guessing.”
Two of the book’s 7 rules matter most here: longer prompts usually win — say more than feels necessary — and ask it to push back (“where are the holes in this?”).
One line. It sets the lens the AI thinks through.
Your goal, who it’s for, what you’re worried about. Anything you’d retype next time belongs in a blank — add one below and hit Insert to drop it in here.
Name the shape of the answer. A fixed list is what stops the AI wandering.
The tone you want, what it must not do, and what to do when it isn’t sure.
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Blanks
The questions the app asks you before it builds the prompt. Add one for every fact that changes each time you run it.
