Why You Should Speak Your Prompts (Not Type)
60sReveals a productivity hack that saves time and improves prompt quality, appealing to lazy typists.
▶ Play ClipThis video provides a comprehensive guide to prompt engineering, covering fundamental techniques, advanced strategies, and practical tips for getting the best results from large language models. The instructor emphasizes treating prompt engineering as 'programming in natural language,' where clarity, context, and structure are crucial. He demonstrates both bad and good examples, introduces key methods, and advocates for using voice dictation to write more detailed prompts faster.
A bad prompt like 'write something about our product' produces generic fluff. A good prompt specifies role, audience, tone, and format, e.g., 'You are a senior B2B copywriter. Write a two sentence LinkedIn ad for our project management SaaS... The audience is ops managers at mid-sized companies. The tone is confident but not salesy...' This leads to a scoped, actionable result.
Prompt engineering is 'programming in natural language' — giving instructions to an AI in plain language instead of code. The model has no built-in task list, so you must define the task, role, format, and constraints within the prompt.
We've shifted into an 'agent era' where LLMs can interact with tools, search the web, and take actions (e.g., change Asana, write a Google Doc). Prompt engineering becomes even more powerful as we instruct models to take real actions, not just produce text.
To overcome laziness and write detailed prompts, use voice dictation. The tool 'Whisper Flow' is recommended—it formats punctuation, capitalizes, and corrects 'ums' and repetitions automatically. The presenter's WPM is 162, much faster than typing.
An LLM is a text prediction model with no built-in memory. What gives it 'memory' is providers (e.g., OpenAI) injecting previous conversation history into the prompt. Your prompt is rarely the only thing the model sees—context includes prior messages, tool access, etc.
Common mistake: commanding the model (e.g., 'summarize this') lets the model choose length, style, and focus. Instead, steer by indicating length, focus, and format (e.g., 'Summarize the meeting transcript. Use four bullet points focusing on decisions and action items. No filler.').
Including these four elements always yields better results. Example: 'You are a customer support lead. Reply to this complaint from a paying user... Acknowledge frustration. Apologize briefly. Confirm investigation. Offer next step. Keep under 150 words. Sign off as support team.'
Provide a few input-output examples so the model infers the pattern. This is great for classification tasks or specific formats. Example: 'Turn user feedback into a short ticket title.' Without examples, it gave five titles; with examples, it gave one title in the correct format.
Ask the model to reason step by step before answering. This reduces errors on logic, math, and planning. Many modern models do this by default, but it's still useful for APIs or older models.
Request output in a specific format like JSON, XML, or Markdown. Provide an exact schema example. This makes the output parseable for applications. Example: 'Compare Trello, Monday.com, and ClickUp... Output with valid JSON only. Use this shape:'
Sometimes telling the model what *not* to do is more effective. Examples: 'Do not apologize. Do not use bullet points. Do not start with greetings.' This often leads to better, more focused output.
Rarely is the first prompt perfect. Instead of restarting, refine within the same conversation: 'Shorter. More formal. Add another example. Focus only on X.' Treat prompting as a conversation, not a one-shot.
Instead of guessing what context to provide, tell the model to interview you. Example: 'Before you write the post, interview me. Ask one question at a time. When you have enough, say you have enough and write the post.' This surfaces details you'd normally omit.
System prompts set identity, rules, and style (always-on behavior). User prompts are the specific request. In ChatGPT, custom instructions act as a system prompt. Example: 'Always talk like Mario' would apply to all replies.
Break complex tasks into multiple steps. Use output from step 1 as input for step 2. This gives more consistent results and lets you verify intermediate outputs. Example: Outline → Expand outline → Write meta description.
Ask the model to critique its own output or score it. For less biased results, start a new session and claim the output is yours ('I wrote this'), not the AI's.
Low temperature = deterministic, repeatable output (good for code, facts). High temperature = creative, varied output (good for brainstorming). Defaults vary by model.
1) Too vague → add role/audience/tone/format. 2) Too many tasks → split into steps/chaining. 3) No context/examples → use few-shot or interview technique. 4) Ignored format → explicitly request structured output (e.g., JSON only). 5) Assuming memory → repeat key facts or start fresh session.
Effective prompt engineering is a learnable skill that dramatically improves AI output quality. Practice iteratively, use voice dictation to speed up the process, and remember to steer the model with clear context, constraints, and structure.
"The video delivers a thorough, example-rich course on prompt engineering, largely matching the title's promise of a 'full course,' though it ends with a product pitch for Whisper Flow."
What is the core difference between a bad prompt and a good prompt according to the video?
A bad prompt is vague and generic like 'write something about our product,' leading to generic fluff. A good prompt specifies the role, audience, tone, and format, resulting in a scoped, actionable output.
00:44
How does the video define prompt engineering?
Prompt engineering is 'programming in natural language'—giving instructions to an AI in plain language instead of code.
01:48
Why doesn't an LLM have built-in memory according to the video?
An LLM is a text prediction model with no built-in memory. What appears as memory is actually providers injecting previous conversation history into the prompt.
08:22
What is the difference between 'steering' and 'commanding' a model?
Commanding tells the model what to do (e.g., 'summarize this'), letting it choose the length, style, and focus. Steering gives more direction on length, focus, and format, producing more accurate results.
10:44
What four elements should you include in a prompt to always improve results?
Role, audience, tone, and format.
12:02
What is few-shot prompting?
Providing the model with a few input-output examples so it can infer the pattern and produce output in the same format or style.
14:35
What is chain-of-thought prompting?
Asking the model to reason step by step before giving the final answer, which reduces errors on logic, math, and planning tasks.
18:13
Why is it sometimes more effective to tell the model what *not* to do?
Constraints and negative instructions (e.g., 'do not apologize,' 'do not use bullet points') can steer the model more accurately and produce better-focused output.
22:07
How does interview-style prompting work?
Instead of providing all context upfront, you state the goal and ask the model to interview you for the information it needs, asking one question at a time until it has enough to generate the output.
25:22
What is the difference between a system prompt and a user prompt?
A system prompt sets the model's identity, rules, and style (always-on behavior). A user prompt is the specific request added to the chain.
29:16
What does the 'temperature' parameter control in an LLM?
Temperature controls determinism: low temperature yields more repeatable, deterministic output (good for code/facts), while high temperature yields more creative, varied output (good for brainstorming).
33:18
What is prompt chaining?
Breaking complex tasks into multiple steps, using the output of each previous step as input for the next, to verify intermediate results and maintain consistency.
31:25
How can you get a less biased self-evaluation from the model?
Start a new session and claim the output is yours (e.g., 'I wrote this'), not the AI's, so the model critiques it more objectively.
32:20
What is a common mistake that leads to the model ignoring the requested format?
Not specifying the output structure explicitly. The fix is to request a specific structure (e.g., 'JSON with keys x, y, z') and tell it to output only that, with no extra text.
35:46
Bad vs. Good Prompt Example
Instantly demonstrates the core lesson: specificity in role, audience, tone, and format transforms output from generic to actionable.
00:44Prompt Engineering as Programming
Establishes a powerful mental model: treating prompts as code in natural language, which reframes the skill as a technical discipline.
01:48Steer, Don't Command
A key principle that prevents the common mistake of giving vague commands, leading to much more controllable AI outputs.
10:44Interview-Style Prompting
An underrated technique that offloads the burden of guessing what context the model needs, resulting in richer, more accurate outputs.
25:22Speak, Don't Type
A practical productivity hack that addresses the real-world barrier of 'laziness' in writing detailed prompts.
04:32[00:00] In this video, you'll learn everything
[00:04] I'll explain what it is.
[00:05] Why it's important. How to do it faster.
[00:08] The top techniques and methods
[00:13] With that said, let's dive in.
[00:14] So what I've done for this
[00:17] that contains all of the examples
[00:21] Now, if you want this file for yourself
[00:24] just by clicking the link in the description
[00:28] Anyways, let's start and I want to just show you
[00:32] a great prompt just to kind of set the tone,
[00:36] And keep in mind, all of the different topics
[00:40] in the video player or the chapters in the comments
[00:44] Okay, so what is a bad prompt?
[00:45] Well, an example of that would be something
[00:49] It's going to give you something like generic
[00:53] probably no CTA.
[00:54] The model is effectively going to
[00:56] guess what you want here, whereas a better prompt
[01:00] You are a senior B2B copywriter.
[01:02] Write a two sentence LinkedIn
[01:05] As an alternative.
[01:06] The audience is ops managers at mid-sized companies.
[01:09] The tone is confident
[01:13] Now, if you do this, you're
[01:16] scoped, actionable, and easy to drop into an ad.
[01:19] The point of me showing you
[01:22] these prompts,
[01:26] So what's giving us the difference in result
[01:32] And most people, while this kind of seems obvious,
[01:37] than they are to the good prompt, and just because a
[01:42] Which I'm going to go over in this video.
[01:44] So this leads me to what is prompt engineering
[01:48] Well, you should really think of prompt engineering
[01:52] So rather than using Python or Java or JavaScript,
[01:58] or whatever
[02:01] some kind of result complete some action,
[02:04] Effectively what you're doing is you're giving
[02:06] instructions in plain language
[02:10] Now, it's important to note that the models
[02:13] these instructions to,
[02:16] So you have to define the task, the role, the format
[02:21] And you have to be very specific
[02:24] And that's why the same model can seem brilliant
[02:28] depending on the clarity, context
[02:31] Now, when most people prompt AI models,
[02:36] And while that's still a very valid use case
[02:40] that we've now shifted kind of into an agent era
[02:43] where a lot of these models
[02:47] searching the web, and actually taking actions
[02:52] They can write a Google doc,
[02:56] And because of that prompt,
[02:59] because we're no longer just directing the model
[03:04] we're actually instructing it to take some kind of
[03:09] So just keep that in mind.
[03:11] While a lot of what I'm showing you here
[03:13] This also works for agents, right?
[03:16] Or more complex models that are capable
[03:21] You can see a vague prompt would be something like
[03:25] is something like you were a tutor,
[03:28] of this 500 word history essay
[03:32] Keep my voice, adjust the edits inline, etc.. Okay.
[03:35] Now, in terms of why this is important,
[03:39] So for people like developers,
[03:44] the better
[03:47] that is for everyone, and the faster
[03:51] So the takeaway write
[03:55] and this is overall
[03:58] But by knowing some of the foundations that I'll
[04:02] you and allow you to think of these a little bit
[04:06] Now, what you've probably gathered at this point
[04:10] the better the result or action
[04:14] Now, that's generally true.
[04:15] I mean, longer prompts are not always better, but
[04:19] However, that's
[04:22] Most people are lazy, they type very slow,
[04:26] 20, 30 minutes here typing a prompt just to have to
[04:31] So what I'm going to suggest to
[04:32] you guys is going forward,
[04:36] So use your voice, use natural language
[04:41] faster where you can include all of the details
[04:46] Now this applies on phone and applies on computer,
[04:49] to do this within any application
[04:53] Here is called a whisper flow.
[04:55] Now I'm just going to quickly show you how it works
[04:58] I have a link in the description.
[04:59] I would highly recommend it
[05:03] that works a lot
[05:06] So for example, let me just do something.
[05:08] Hey, this is just a quick test
[05:11] and see what kind of results I'm getting.
[05:12] Notice I'm talking,
[05:17] I'm making a few repetitions, pauses, etc.
[05:20] and let's see the result that we get.
[05:22] Okay, so you can see the kind of little bubble
[05:25] And pretty much instantly we get the result.
[05:27] And you'll see that if we go through the result here,
[05:31] the capitalization, and corrects
[05:36] I believe I said extremely twice.
[05:38] It recognized that wasn't useful and it just removed.
[05:41] So you get a much faster, better result
[05:45] I want to have three bullet points.
[05:47] Bullet point one is Apple's bullet point two is
[05:51] banana's, bullet point three is pears.
[05:54] And you'll see that
[05:57] Okay.
[05:58] So when you're doing the prompts,
[06:00] And this tool will handle it
[06:04] I do have a long term partnership
[06:08] before we did the partnership
[06:11] You can see here I've spoken 35,000 words.
[06:14] My WPM is 162,
[06:19] It has a lot of other features
[06:22] You can change the style based on the apps
[06:25] all of this kind of stuff, and a bunch of settings
[06:29] on my computer, and that allows me to actually
[06:35] So I use this in every kind of application.
[06:37] Sometimes I use it to write emails,
[06:40] Right?
[06:40] Sometimes I used in cursor
[06:44] and I'll show you more of it in the video.
[06:45] But the point is, speak your prompts,
[06:49] And this tool also is available on phone.
[06:51] They actually recently released it on Android,
[06:56] like on your iPhone or Android.
[06:57] So even if you're on mobile,
[07:01] comprehensive prompt
[07:04] So this now leads us to the next section,
[07:08] Now, an LLM is a large language model.
[07:12] And effectively what these are capable of doing
[07:16] So you give some text in, they give some text app.
[07:19] Now you can configure them in very fancy ways
[07:23] or call other LMS or create something
[07:27] But effectively, at the very root of an Lem,
[07:32] It's important to understand this
[07:36] you need to imagine that
[07:40] the next text that you would expect
[07:43] So while you might see reasoning models,
[07:47] is thinking or developing something.
[07:49] Really, it's just been trained
[07:54] it's able to predict
[07:57] what it is it thinks you want in terms of the output.
[08:00] So the prediction is usually going to be in text
[08:05] You give some tokens in it spits some tokens out.
[08:08] That's effectively what an Lem is.
[08:10] We don't need to worry about the architecture
[08:12] or anything complicated there just remember
[08:15] you get some output, and it's just predicting
[08:19] Now with that in mind and Lem by default.
[08:22] So something like GPT 5.2 right.
[08:24] It doesn't have any memory.
[08:26] Now what would give it
[08:30] injecting previous parts of your conversation
[08:33] into the prompt or into the model automatically.
[08:36] So what you need to understand
[08:39] Lem's right.
[08:40] You use ChatGPT, you use Claude, or you use curser.
[08:43] Behind the scenes, the people who developed
[08:48] they're injecting a lot of data into the prompt
[08:54] So while you may prompt and say, hey,
[08:59] behind the scenes,
[09:02] where it includes a lot more details
[09:06] So it's just important for you to understand that,
[09:10] It doesn't have, like all of these fancy features
[09:15] The reason why that exists is because OpenAI,
[09:19] created this nice interface on top of the Lem,
[09:25] that injects this other information into the prompt
[09:28] that then goes to the model,
[09:32] So 99% of the time, your prompt is not the only thing
[09:37] It's going to be seeing,
[09:39] Maybe it has access to some tools, right?
[09:42] Whatever.
[09:42] There's all kinds of things that are usually
[09:46] And it's really important
[09:50] And you don't think like GPT 5.2 or something
[09:55] The only reason that it knows something is because
[10:00] previously, and just injecting that into the prompt
[10:05] Now, that additional information that I just talked
[10:10] It's the other stuff that the Lem can see
[10:14] That's not just the prompt that you gave it.
[10:16] So just understand that the context, specificity
[10:20] that you provide is what shapes
[10:23] And a lot of these tools, just like,
[10:25] The tool that I'm using right now,
[10:27] if I create an agent by default, it's
[10:31] And if I tag something like this markdown file right.
[10:34] And I say, you know, hello world, the prompt is
[10:40] Now, with that in mind, let's quickly
[10:44] So the common mistake that most people make
[10:48] command the model to do something,
[10:52] Now commanding
[10:55] Do this, you know, write this down.
[10:57] Take this thing. Look at this thing. Whatever. Right.
[11:00] So if that's the case,
[11:03] that it's going to take
[11:07] Whereas steering the model,
[11:11] So you are an executive assistant.
[11:12] Summarize the meeting transcript and for bullet
[11:17] No filler.
[11:17] Notice that we're not only telling you what to do,
[11:21] and we're giving it a much more clear objective
[11:26] it can give us a much more accurate, better result
[11:31] So when you steer the model,
[11:32] you're typically indicating the length,
[11:36] Whereas when you're commanding the model,
[11:40] how it's going to do that. The result
[11:42] So I'm not going to focus on that too much more,
[11:46] Now, what I want to do is get into the core
[11:48] techniques of prompt engineering
[11:52] So one of the most basic and important techniques
[11:56] and to set the scene or specify
[12:00] The model or agent to take.
[12:02] Now these are the four things that,
[12:06] give you a much better result
[12:10] If you include a role in audience, a tone,
[12:13] format or output, you're almost always going
[12:17] So here it says,
[12:20] Okay, fine, you can reply to it.
[12:21] But if you said something like this,
[12:25] the audience, the tone and the format.
[12:27] So you're going to get a better response.
[12:28] So what I want to do now
[12:31] by actually writing or voicing
[12:34] So let's just do a quick example of the bad prompt,
[12:37] Reply to this customer complaint.
[12:39] And then I'm just going to paste in a random one
[12:42] And let's see the result
[12:45] So you can see here it gave us something decent,
[12:48] Even though you know, we didn't specify we want it
[12:52] It didn't say it was from the support team. Whatever.
[12:55] So what I'm going to do now is just make a new chat
[12:59] with the same customer complaint
[13:03] Reply to this complaint from a paying user
[13:07] Acknowledge the frustration. Apologize. Briefly.
[13:10] Confirm
[13:13] For example, we'll email it in 24 hours,
[13:16] 150 words and sign off as the support team.
[13:19] Cool.
[13:19] So that is our prompt.
[13:21] Okay.
[13:22] Notice again
[13:25] So another important part when you are writing
[13:29] well so you have like bullet points
[13:32] sections,
[13:35] It's going to be a lot easier for the model to
[13:40] For example, if we even just do a quick delimiter,
[13:44] and saying, you know, here is the complaint.
[13:47] And then putting a colon, it's separate.
[13:49] So like this is the thing it should be listening to.
[13:52] And then this is the additional context.
[13:54] And also notice that I created a new session here
[13:59] not automatically going to include the previous text
[14:04] So I'm just going to go ahead and hit enter here.
[14:06] What I mean is that if I had just run this underneath
[14:10] you know, we can still get a decent result,
[14:15] or mixed up with the other conversation history,
[14:19] in the prompt as well,
[14:23] So if we look here, you can see now we get something
[14:26] You know, it says best regards support team.
[14:28] And it's followed
[14:31] Then the next technique you can use
[14:35] Now effectively what this means is
[14:39] of input and output pairs that you're looking for, so
[14:42] that when you give the prompt,
[14:45] So when you do this, the model can infer and figure
[14:50] and then replicate the pattern
[14:54] So this is especially helpful
[14:58] You have various edge cases,
[15:01] task using an LLF, because
[15:05] For example, like is this email positive or negative?
[15:08] Is it red or black, whatever, right.
[15:11] But only if they know and have examples
[15:15] And in fact, when you talk about fine tuning LMS,
[15:20] is you're passing them a bunch of different examples
[15:25] so they can infer that pattern on top of their base
[15:30] So let's have a look at a few examples here.
[15:32] I'm not going to throw them on screen.
[15:33] Let's just go into ChatGPT and we can do
[15:38] So let's do something like turn
[15:43] The feedback is the app crashed
[15:49] Okay, and let's see what we get here.
[15:51] Perfect.
[15:53] Let's see what it gives us.
[15:54] Okay, so you can see we didn't really get any clear
[15:56] It didn't actually give me one title.
[15:58] It gave me five because again
[16:01] But let's change and do something like this.
[16:03] Turn user feedback into a short ticket title.
[16:05] We want this to be under 60 characters,
[16:11] Okay. And then I'm just going to paste this.
[16:13] And then here I'm just going to say here are
[16:17] Just give me back one line of text that starts
[16:23] And then a brief description of the issue. Okay.
[16:26] And then we should just say something like this.
[16:28] And then I can even do,
[16:33] Okay.
[16:33] Cool.
[16:34] So let's now run this
[16:37] So let's actually separate the examples a little bit.
[16:40] So it's it's a bit easier to see.
[16:41] And you can see that we have you know feedback long.
[16:44] It is broken with Google on Safari
[16:47] And then Google login fails on Safari.
[16:49] And then let's go here.
[16:50] Feedback is export to CSV only. Exports
[16:54] The title export right CSV feedback.
[16:56] The app crashed
[17:00] This is actually the example
[17:03] Sorry.
[17:04] And I'm going to say like this.
[17:07] This is the feedback to generate the title for.
[17:13] Cool.
[17:13] Okay.
[17:14] And then it should give us the title
[17:16] Now again I'm being super specific,
[17:19] a few examples,
[17:23] And there you go.
[17:23] You can see it says upload and then iPhone app
[17:28] So in this case I was super verbose.
[17:30] So we went from this kind of crap here
[17:34] now I could directly plug into like some API
[17:38] And I know that the format I'm going to get from
[17:41] And then I could just do something else now
[17:44] So let's go.
[17:45] Like feedback I don't know here.
[17:47] Let's go feedback and let's change this
[17:50] to say something
[17:53] The keyboard does not disappear when clicking
[17:59] Okay.
[17:59] And let's see if we give it
[18:02] And there you go.
[18:04] And we can now keep doing this in this chain because
[18:09] Now the next technique to go over
[18:13] Now this is asking the model to reason step by step
[18:18] Now this will reduce errors on logic, math, you know,
[18:23] And a lot of models do this by default now,
[18:28] or a reasoning model
[18:31] Right.
[18:31] Again, like in the prompt that's being created for
[18:36] So the reasoning models, like
[18:40] some fancy kind of tools and orchestration
[18:45] But if you're not using a fancy model like that,
[18:49] with chain of thought.
[18:50] So without it, you have something like, you know,
[18:55] Sarah buys three pens and two notebooks.
[18:56] She has a 10% off coupon. Coupon? Sorry.
[18:58] How much does she pay now?
[19:00] If you don't tell it to reason, it's just going to
[19:05] Now, in a lot of cases, it will get this wrong.
[19:07] Just like the famous example of asking them to count.
[19:10] You know how many teaser and strawberry or something,
[19:14] unless you change the prompt
[19:18] so that it actually thinks before
[19:21] Okay,
[19:23] because it is probably not going to work
[19:27] will give us a very similar result,
[19:32] models is already really good,
[19:36] the reasoning by default, or if you're not using them
[19:40] and you're just using it in like an API or something,
[19:44] these kind of keywords, right?
[19:45] So just anyways,
[19:48] A lot of times now
[19:49] the models that are super modern and,
[19:53] And actually auto detect what reasoning model
[19:58] But it is kind of worth knowing, especially,
[20:01] 12 months ago, this was a lot more important than it
[20:04] So the next method that is super
[20:08] Now this is asking the model to provide the output
[20:14] XML, markdown, whatever, and then giving an exact
[20:18] such that you're able to parse this and use it
[20:23] Now, in my case,
[20:26] And when I have the model generating something,
[20:31] Maybe I want to display it
[20:33] In order to do that,
[20:37] So what I will do is something like what you see
[20:39] right here
[20:43] This is what is referred to, which is really just
[20:48] So it knows how to give me the output.
[20:49] So obviously compared to the first example
[20:52] something like this, the main difference
[20:55] and we're telling it that we want it to respond
[20:58] No other text in a particular shape.
[21:00] So we're kind of almost doing this
[21:03] or few short prompting,
[21:07] So anyways, let me go to ChatGPT
[21:10] So what's something that we can do.
[21:12] so we can say maybe compare
[21:16] For a small team of 5 to 10 people,
[21:19] the main features, the limitations and the pricing.
[21:23] And what I'd like you to do is output this with valid
[21:27] Don't give me any other text
[21:31] Okay, so that is what we're going to do here.
[21:33] Just put that in with whisper.
[21:34] And then I'm just going to paste in the format.
[21:36] So we'll just put it like that
[21:41] So let's run this now and let's see what we get okay.
[21:44] So just give me the output right now.
[21:46] But you can see that it's following this format.
[21:48] It's in a valid Json object.
[21:50] And now I would be able to load this into my code.
[21:52] I could store it in a database right.
[21:54] I can return it from an API.
[21:55] It doesn't matter. But it is very useful.
[21:57] And it's going to be a lot better
[21:59] this random kind of markdown text
[22:04] So moving on, let's talk about constraints
[22:07] So sometimes the best prompts are not talking
[22:10] too much about what to do,
[22:14] Now the more constraints which is saying you know, do
[22:19] whatever the better the results you're going to get,
[22:23] So some examples of constraints is for example
[22:27] Now you could say summarize in exactly
[22:29] That's fine. That's a constraint.
[22:31] You also could say keep the reply under 300 words
[22:35] Right.
[22:35] You could have a tone like no slang or humor.
[22:37] Do not apologize. Right.
[22:39] Do not use bullet points. Use one short paragraph.
[22:42] Do not suggest paid tools. Do not include code.
[22:44] Describe the approach only.
[22:46] So when you do that, it actually ends up listening
[22:51] And this has been shown a lot,
[22:52] especially with a lot of the researchers
[22:56] are including a large list of things not to do
[23:01] So you don't want to write something
[23:04] Instead, you would say,
[23:07] Start directly
[23:10] Do not start with welcome or generic greetings.
[23:13] And then in that case, you're going to get something
[23:16] So anyways, let's have a quick
[23:18] If we go inside of something like ChatGPT again,
[23:22] So let's just do something
[23:26] Tip okay, so this would be without any constraints.
[23:30] And let's see the kind of response that we get.
[23:31] Okay, so ChatGPT actually gave me something
[23:35] for an out of office email
[23:38] the dates, the time, all of that kind of stuff.
[23:40] So let's do something better would be, say,
[23:44] start with the exact dates I'm away,
[23:49] Do not use the phrase limited access.
[23:52] Reply when I can or thank you for your patience.
[23:55] Be short to the point,
[23:58] when I'm coming back,
[24:02] Okay, so in this case, again,
[24:05] So hopefully we're going to get
[24:08] And let's see perfect.
[24:09] And you can see that we get a much better email
[24:13] you know, message me
[24:16] Which funny enough, we got in this one,
[24:19] Now the next method to go over is pretty
[24:23] but it's just to do iterative refinement
[24:26] So very rarely is the first prompt
[24:30] So rather than restarting simply
[24:32] improve the prompt over and over again
[24:36] So as it says here, you know, treat prompting
[24:41] The first reply maybe isn't right,
[24:44] I'd like it more formal. Add another example.
[24:46] Focus only on X, whatever.
[24:48] Of course, the better first prompt
[24:51] But sometimes you just don't know
[24:53] In that case, don't restart.
[24:55] Just keep going based off the result that you have.
[24:58] If you're in like a decent enough place
[25:01] you know, you dropped a two sentence blurb.
[25:03] Whatever it returns four sentences a bit salesy.
[25:06] Hey, cut it to two sentences.
[25:08] Whatever model tightens
[25:11] You get the idea.
[25:12] I'm not going to show this to you in ChatGPT
[25:15] But the point is, be iterative with your prompt.
[25:18] And then the last method that I'm quickly going
[25:22] is the interview style prompting,
[25:26] So I'm just going to read through some of this
[25:29] But instead of guessing what context to provide,
[25:33] and ask it to interview you
[25:37] So a lot of times you know, you're
[25:40] because you don't actually know what information
[25:45] You can go off the top of your head,
[25:48] if the model prompts you on what it is that it needs,
[25:53] where it's prompting you and then your prompting it,
[25:58] So you state the goal,
[26:01] and you can answer them one by one, and then it can
[26:06] Now it works because we often leave out
[26:09] Audience constraints, format examples
[26:13] So if we let them surface that information first,
[26:17] it gives us kind of the prompt to
[26:21] And a lot of times we're lazy or we have assumptions.
[26:23] So again, we just don't include something
[26:26] but it may not actually know that
[26:30] Okay.
[26:30] So I mean, if you have this talk
[26:32] but what I'm going to do is just go over into ChatGPT
[26:36] this kind of interview style
[26:40] Okay, so let's just read something out here.
[26:42] I need a short LinkedIn post about 250 words
[26:45] about lessons
[26:48] Before you write it, interview
[26:52] So, for example,
[26:55] do's and don'ts,
[26:59] And then when you have enough information, say,
[27:03] Then I want you to write the post and again
[27:09] Okay.
[27:09] So we have the prompt here.
[27:11] You can see that it's generated.
[27:13] And now let's see if we can do this.
[27:15] So great says first question who is the primary
[27:19] And let's say it is founders and CEOs
[27:24] okay.
[27:25] Let's see what question we get next. Got it.
[27:27] Second question.
[27:28] Tell me about your company context.
[27:29] So the advice doesn't feel too generic.
[27:31] I run a developer mentorship program
[27:36] you know, land software engineering jobs
[27:40] And I employ a team of about ten people.
[27:43] They're mostly remote where they're doing like
[27:48] For the company.
[27:50] I'm just making up random stuff right now.
[27:52] But anyways, you get the idea.
[27:53] Okay, let's see what else. Get context.
[27:55] Next question why did you switch to a four day
[27:59] We switch because we wanted to get more flexibility
[28:02] and to make them more focused on the four days
[28:08] to do when they, you know, didn't need to be doing
[28:12] Okay, let's see here.
[28:14] It's actually picked up just spinning random stuff.
[28:16] So let's remove that, and let's see what we get.
[28:19] Next question.
[28:20] What actually happened after you switch
[28:24] The productivity went up.
[28:25] The revenue stayed about the same,
[28:29] And there was no unexpected problems.
[28:32] Okay. Let's see
[28:34] So after this I'm just going to tell it to stop
[28:37] Use the current information and give me the post.
[28:39] Don't ask any more questions.
[28:41] So you can see when I do this,
[28:45] that is accurate based on what I told it,
[28:49] AI crap that you guys probably see all the time over
[28:52] It actually matches,
[28:56] So what happened?
[28:56] Productivity went up, revenue stayed the same, team
[28:59] You get the idea.
[29:00] So this interview style is really effective
[29:05] by just chatting
[29:08] that you probably never would include by default,
[29:12] Okay, so now I'm going to go through
[29:16] So first one to talk about is system
[29:19] Now this is more relevant for those of you
[29:23] However in some different applications
[29:26] and a user prompt.
[29:27] Now, a system
[29:30] various rules and style, and it's often
[29:35] So this is for always on behavior
[29:40] going to read this system
[29:45] is designed for the system
[29:49] So for example,
[29:52] you know, I give it a system prompt
[29:55] I don't need to say that every time.
[29:57] It just always reads that.
[29:59] So in cursor, the app that I'm in right now
[30:03] they have their own system prompts
[30:05] that they provide to the models
[30:09] And then when you type the prompt,
[30:13] that's already inside of there, that's building
[30:18] So if you have a look here,
[30:20] be like you're a helpful
[30:23] Whereas the user is,
[30:27] Now if I go to ChatGPT,
[30:30] So actually if you go to ChatGPT settings,
[30:35] custom instructions, which is somewhat similar
[30:39] And you can see that
[30:42] Take a forward
[30:45] Now I'm going to change this to say,
[30:46] be direct into the points and always talk like Mario
[30:51] I don't know if that's going to work super
[30:53] but let's see now if we do a new conversation.
[30:55] Hey, how's your day going?
[30:57] Let's see if it's actually going to give me something
[31:00] You can see hey Tim, it's good, you see.
[31:02] So it's actually following like the system
[31:05] And giving me a much different response
[31:08] Now I need to turn that off.
[31:10] So let's just remove the custom instructions
[31:13] But you get the idea, okay.
[31:14] And even these other things like the style, warm,
[31:18] to the system prompt
[31:22] Okay.
[31:22] Now the next advanced feature to go over is prompt
[31:25] Now, generally speaking, it's better to break
[31:30] and to use the output of the previous step
[31:33] So rather than just writing a super complex prompt
[31:37] are the three different steps that you need to do.
[31:39] Just do them one by one
[31:43] before moving on to step two.
[31:45] So I'm not going to demonstrate this in ChatGPT.
[31:47] But the example would be like,
[31:48] you know, given topic, whatever output
[31:53] Okay. It then does that.
[31:54] Then you say okay based on that result,
[31:59] And then,
[32:01] Then you wait for that.
[32:02] I say turn this draft into,
[32:06] You get the idea.
[32:07] So go step by step and break it down.
[32:10] Rather than having the model do everything at once,
[32:15] more consistent result.
[32:16] Now, another, more advanced technique
[32:20] So let's say the model outputs something to you.
[32:22] You can then ask the model to critique
[32:26] Now sometimes you want to fool the model a bit
[32:30] You don't want to have it in the same one and say,
[32:34] that I wrote rather than saying, hey, an AI model
[32:38] going to give you a more accurate response
[32:42] So if you have drafts, code, summaries, whatever,
[32:46] here's a short summary
[32:48] Put the text, rate it
[32:51] in one sentence
[32:54] And then you can take that improvement
[32:58] Okay, so super cool.
[32:59] The evaluation is really good,
[33:02] And you're not just,
[33:05] chain after it gives you the output
[33:09] because it's not going to give you
[33:12] as if you ask it in a fresh chain
[33:16] Okay.
[33:17] And then just a few other things to look at here.
[33:18] So temperature and other parameters.
[33:20] Now if you're going to work with models
[33:23] setting, you're going to have the ability
[33:27] Now the temperature of the model
[33:31] Now the determinism means how repeatable effectively
[33:36] something that's deterministic is like okay,
[33:42] It always opens like it's a deterministic action.
[33:44] Like if I open this, it's always going to open right?
[33:46] Whereas if I generate a random number
[33:48] that's non-deterministic
[33:52] And I can get a random number now LMS by
[33:58] a sense of randomness and you don't know the output
[34:03] Now you can adjust how deterministic
[34:09] So the lower the temperature is, the more repeatable
[34:15] the higher the temperature, the more creative, varied
[34:19] So you would use a low temperature
[34:22] especially if you want something
[34:26] Right.
[34:26] Code facts, things where there's really just like one
[34:31] is the sentiment of this, you know, text positive.
[34:34] That would be a low, you know, temperature,
[34:38] Whereas for higher temperature, you use this
[34:44] maybe some advanced planning if it's not really sure,
[34:48] And if the outputs are too random,
[34:51] But if it's too repetitive,
[34:54] so you know, play with the temperature by default.
[34:56] It's usually on the lower side on the higher side.
[34:58] But just know what that parameter means
[35:00] because it does come up a lot
[35:03] So now let's talk about a few common mistakes
[35:07] Now one mistake being too vague right.
[35:09] What's going to go wrong?
[35:12] How can you fix that at a roll?
[35:14] Audience tone format potentially length okay,
[35:17] next, too many tasks in one prompt.
[35:20] So a lot of times you're putting,
[35:23] In that case, the model may, miss something.
[35:25] You may not actually complete the task.
[35:26] It might mix them up, whatever.
[35:28] In that case,
[35:31] Right.
[35:31] So chaining like I talked about before.
[35:33] Now none of context are examples.
[35:35] So you're going to get like wrong format or style.
[35:37] So add 123.
[35:38] Few shot examples include the relevant background.
[35:41] Or use that interview technique to ensure
[35:45] Another common mistake
[35:46] is that the model ignores the format that you want,
[35:51] So, like I showed you before,
[35:54] a specific structure and tell it to only output that.
[35:57] So Json with keys x, y, z or whatever. Right?
[36:00] Only give me Json.
[36:01] Do not give me any text, don't give me anything
[36:03] We're adding the constraints
[36:07] and then assuming memory like I said, the model
[36:12] or that aren't in the same thread conversation
[36:17] So make sure that you repeat or summarize key facts
[36:21] or if you're working in a new session,
[36:25] Again, you kind of have to infer
[36:29] doing in the background
[36:32] Okay, now there's a lot of other mistakes and things
[36:35] kind of the rest of the stuff in this document
[36:40] Last thing I will say is that it
[36:42] does just make a massive difference
[36:46] The more you prompt, the more you're going to see
[36:49] to, how you get the best response,
[36:53] If you use a tool like flow,
[36:57] you just to dictate it with your natural voice
[37:01] You guys have seen in this video
[37:04] and how much better
[37:07] So I know yes there partner of mine,
[37:11] I really cannot recommend it enough, and whether
[37:15] But point is, use some kind of dictation tool used on
[37:19] Your productivity will skyrocket, especially
[37:24] really long, detailed prompts and you're working
[37:28] So anyways, guys, that's going to wrap up this video.
[37:31] If you enjoyed, make sure leave a like subscribe
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