Five AI prompts I use every week
Not clever tricks. Five reliable, reusable prompts that quietly save a few hours every week. Copy them, adapt them, keep what works.
The best prompts are boring and repeatable. I am not interested in the prompt that produces one magic result. I am interested in the five I reach for every week because they reliably turn a 40-minute task into a 5-minute one. Here they are, in plain form. If you want the bigger picture of how these fit into a system for working and living intentionally, that is the Orbit framework.
1. The “explain the decision” prompt
Here is a document. In five bullet points, tell me what decision it is asking me to make, what the options are, and what is missing.
Run this before reading any long report. It turns reading into reviewing.
2. The “first draft” prompt
Draft a [email / summary / brief] for [audience] that achieves [goal]. Keep it under [length]. Here are the raw notes: [paste].
The output is never the final version, because a model is a fluent first draft engine, not an oracle. It is the blank-page problem solved, which is most of the battle.
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3. The “steelman” prompt
Argue the strongest possible case against this plan. Be specific and unsparing.
Genuinely useful before a meeting. It surfaces the objection you would otherwise hear live, while you still have time to answer it.
4. The “translate the jargon” prompt
Rewrite this for a smart colleague who is not in this field. No acronyms.
Half of “AI strategy” is just communication, and this prompt does that job faster than any editor.
5. The “what am I missing” prompt
I am trying to [goal]. Here is my current plan: [paste]. What are three things a careful expert would flag that I have not considered?
This is the one that has saved me from the most mistakes. Not because the model is wiser than me, but because it never gets tired of checking the obvious.
How to make these yours
Keep a single notes file called something like prompts.md. Every time a prompt works well, paste it in and tidy the wording. Within a month you will have a personal toolkit worth more than any course, because it is built around the exact work you actually do. It is also the most practical answer to the worry that AI will take your job.
Want the system behind this thinking?
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