Stop writing instructions for AI

Most people type a long prompt telling AI what they want. They get something average back and decide they are bad at prompting.

That is not what is happening. You probably know exactly what you need. You just cannot see which details are missing until someone asks.

Instead of writing instructions, tell AI the job you want done. Then say: before you do anything, interview me about this. Ask me one question at a time until you have everything you need.

It will ask where the information lives. What the finished job looks like. Who it goes to. What happens when something is missing.

You will find the answers easy. You know your business inside out. You just cannot write down everything that matters in one go, because you do not know what you do not know until someone surfaces it.

When the questions run out, tell it to turn your answers into a requirements document and work from that.

This is how good consultants have scoped work for decades. Sit with the client, ask questions, write the spec, then deliver. AI can run that same method on itself.

I run this on everything from client proposals to internal processes. The requirements doc it produces from a ten-minute interview is better than anything I would have written as a prompt, because it captures the details I would have forgotten to include.

Pick one job you do every week and do not enjoy. Chasing invoices. Meeting notes. The monthly report. Tell AI to interview you about it tonight. You will have a better brief than anything you would have written yourself.