AI is embedded into virtually everything I do, every day. Two windows are always open on my computer. One for Claude, one for ChatGPT (I’m experimenting with others). As I mull over issues, questions, ideas, these tools are critical thought partners. When I want a different point of view, I often turn to the LLMs to help me.
Over time, I’ve developed a rich library of prompts I use to help me look at new things. I store some of these as GPTs. My prompts, frequently reach the 8000 character limits of these GPTs. My prompts are focused on helping me learn new things. For example, I have my Kitchen Table Advisory Board. I imagine considering an issue or an idea. I’d like to brainstorm it with world class experts. For example, I was trying to rethink how we develop and execute our business strategies. I sat down with Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, and Daniel Kahneman. We debated ideas and approaches for about 45 minutes. That discussion helped clarify my thinking on the issues I considered. They gave me no answers, but helped me think.
I’ve found just the act of sitting down and developing a prompt to help me address some issues/ideas very powerful. I have to think: How do I want the LLM to help me? What is the interaction I want, how do I want it to push me? What am I trying to achieve in creating the prompt? What are the boundaries I want to set and why? The list of things go on. As I build the prompt, the thinking underlying the prompt creation is, often, most clarifying.
Some of the prompts help me in my workflow, simplifying things, automating certain repetitive tasks. Summarizing meeting notes, summarizing articles I’ve read (I do this only after reading the article, the summaries are never substitutes for reading the article).
My feeds are filled with pre-developed prompts. People freely offering these to help. “Here’s an e-mail bot to manage all your business emails! Master this sales methodology! Create an expert call planner! Create a demand gen machine!” And the lists go on and on. Prompts that only require us to cut and paste, hit go and we get the answers.
Prompts that give us the answers have several dangers.
These prompt libraries, that we have simply copied, provide an illusion of mastery. We don’t have to do the work. We don’t have to do the thinking. We don’t have to understand. Because all the answers have been provided, we may appear to be knowledgeable, to have insights. We sound smart for a few minutes, then someone responds, “Tell me more….. How did you arrive at that conclusion….. We think about this differently….”
There remains the huge challenge of hallucinations. The more specific the answers we seek, the greater the potential of getting hallucinations. For example, I don’t want the prompt to do the research, because I can’t trust the research it’s done. But I do want the prompt to help me think about the research and how I might do it most efficiently. Likewise, these tools struggle with math, I have so many other tools that do the math for me.
I learn so much in writing the prompts. The act of creating a prompt helps frame my thinking. It helps me better define the problem or issue I seek to address. There may be hypotheses I want to test. There may be alternative points of view I want to understand. I get to consider challenges to my thinking. It forces me to define a context, to clarify my intent and what I am trying to do. It helps me frame and reframe my thinking. Developing the prompt helps me break down the problems and issues.
So prompt writing is helpful to me!
Do I copy paste other’s prompts? Sometimes, but rarely. When I copy paste a prompt, it’s seldom to use the prompt. But it is the base for a new prompt I want to develop for myself. For example, there is a fascinating writer posting on Substack. He publishes the prompts he uses to help him think about his writing–not to do the writing for him. Often, I copy paste his prompts. I study them, I like his thought process, I like the way he turns over different ideas, and experiments. His prompts give me ideas for refining my prompts. Using his prompts is useless to me, because his prompts create outstanding books on technical subjects. But looking at how he has written a prompt gives me ideas for my own prompts.
But I would be less than honest if I didn’t say, I freely provide cut/paste prompts to my clients and colleagues. I have a rich library of GPTs I share with people to use in their work. The prompts/GPTs I provide never focus on doing someone’s work. These prompts never provide an answer. In fact they are annoying because they primarily ask questions. They are intended to help break problems down, explore different ideas. In the end, they challenge you do develop your own answers, to map out your own action plan. And I’m happy when people take my prompt, then start adapting it for their own specific purposes.
Some final thoughts, somewhat random:
- Prompts that purport to give you the answers, will never give you the answers you need, they give the answers the prompt author was looking for.
- Every business professional should master prompt writing. Just like we learn problem solving, critical thinking, prompt writing provides us a way to explore, create, and clarify.
- Structure your prompts to force you to develop the answers and action plans, not give you the answers.
- Study other people’s prompts, don’t copy them. Use them to explore new ideas, to develop your own skills for improving your prompting.
- Incorporate these tools into your daily workflow.
I find the greatest power is using these tools as a collaborator. They challenge me to be better, rather enabling me to outsource my thinking.
Afterword: This is the AI generated discussion this post The Thinking Underlying The Prompt Will…. I always find it funny to hear these AI characters talking about themselves. It’s a good discussion, enjoy!
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