Day 2 — Talking to AI Well
Time: ~60 min · Date: Sun Apr 26
Why this matters
The single biggest predictor of getting useful AI output is the quality of your input. People who think AI is "meh" usually have meh prompts. People who think it's magic usually figured out how to talk to it. This lesson is the difference.
The four things every good prompt has
Most good prompts have some combination of these. You don't need all four every time, but missing all four guarantees a vague answer.
1. Role / context
"I'm a real estate agent on the Wasatch Front…"
Tell it who you are and what you're doing. Claude calibrates the answer to the audience.
2. Task
"Write a follow-up email to a buyer who's gone quiet."
Be specific about what you want it to do. Verbs: write, summarize, rewrite, list, compare, explain, draft, critique.
3. Specifics / inputs
"The buyer's name is Sarah, we last spoke 8 days ago, we had a great first conversation but she hasn't responded to my last 2 emails."
The more concrete details, the more concrete the output.
4. Format / constraints
"Keep it under 100 words. End with a low-pressure question. Tone: friendly, not desperate."
Length, tone, structure. If you don't ask, Claude picks defaults that may not match what you want.
Bad → good rewrite
Bad:
Write a follow-up email.
Good:
I'm a real estate agent. Write a follow-up email to a buyer named Sarah who went quiet after I sent her a list of homes 8 days ago. We had a great first conversation. Tone: friendly, not desperate. Under 100 words. End with a low-pressure question.
The bad version gets you a generic follow-up email template. The good one gets you something you can actually send.
Other useful moves
Show, don't just tell
If you want output in a specific style, give an example.
"Write three Instagram captions for a new listing. Match the style of these three captions I've used before:
[paste captions]"
Iterate
The first answer is rarely the final answer. It's a starting point.
"Make it 30% shorter and remove the part about the schools." "More casual. Less formal." "Try again, but assume the buyer is a first-time investor."
Ask for options
When you don't know what you want yet:
"Give me three different versions: one warm, one direct, one playful."
Ask Claude to ask you
When you're not sure what to include:
"I want to write an open house follow-up email. What information do you need from me to write a good one?"
This flips the script — Claude asks you the right questions.
Use the magic phrase: "before you answer"
"Before you answer, what assumptions are you making?"
This catches situations where Claude is guessing. Sometimes those guesses are wrong, and you'd rather find out before you act on the answer.
Common pitfalls
- Asking yes/no questions when you want analysis. "Is X a good idea?" → Claude says "yes/no, but…" Asking "what are the tradeoffs of X?" gets you the actual thinking.
- Stacking too many tasks in one prompt. "Write the email, then summarize it, then tweet it, then translate to Spanish." Pick one. Iterate.
- Trusting confident wrongness. Claude will sound certain even when guessing. Always verify facts that matter.
- Over-engineering. Sometimes "rewrite this email more warmly" is the whole prompt you need.
Exercise (~30 min)
Pick one real task from your work this week. Something you'd otherwise do yourself in 15 minutes.
Examples:
- Drafting an email
- Writing a listing description
- Summarizing a document a client sent you
- Coming up with questions for a meeting
Now:
- Write a bad prompt — vague, no context, no constraints. Try it in Claude.ai. Note the result.
- Rewrite using the four-part framework (role + task + specifics + format). Try again. Compare.
- Iterate at least once on the second attempt to make it better.
- Take notes on what changed and why.
This is the pattern you'll use forever. The first prompt is rarely the keeper.
Recap
You should now be able to:
- Name the four parts of a good prompt
- Recognize a vague prompt and rewrite it
- Iterate on a Claude response instead of accepting the first try
- Catch a "confidently wrong" answer
Going deeper (optional, ~50 min)
Read (~30 min)
- Anthropic's prompt engineering guide — the canonical reference, written by the people who make Claude. Skim it. The "Be clear and direct" and "Use examples" sections are the most relevant for you.
Watch (~20 min)
- Search YouTube: "prompt engineering for beginners 2024" — pick a 10–15 minute intro from any channel that looks well-produced. Skip anything that says "100 prompts you NEED" — those are clickbait.
- Search YouTube: "how to write better AI prompts".
Done?
- Day 2 complete