Start with a clear goal

What you will learn

• Four things to decide before you write a prompt: audience, purpose, success criteria and constraints
• How a clear goal brings the first answer closer to what you need
• How to turn your goal into a prompt you can reuse

The idea

Many weak answers come from a vague request rather than from the tool. If you are not sure what you want, the AI has to guess, and it tends to guess something average. A prompt, the message you send to the AI, works better when it starts from a clear goal.

Before you write, decide four things. The audience: who will read or use the result, and what they already know. The purpose: what the result should make happen, such as a decision, an action or an understanding. The success criteria: how you will know the result is good, for example "my manager can approve it in two minutes" or "a beginner can follow every step". The constraints: limits such as length, deadline, tone, words to avoid or rules you must follow.

Writing these down takes a minute, and it helps you as much as the AI. It also gives you a checklist to judge the answer against later, so you are not just deciding whether it "sounds fine".

This lesson starts the path on getting AI to do a task for you. The next lessons add context, examples and format, and step-by-step improvement.

Example

Here is a first try:

Write something about our new recycling rules for the office.

The result is a general article about why recycling matters. Nobody in the office will read it. Here is the same request with a clear goal:

Write a notice for the office kitchen about our new recycling rules.

Audience: all staff. Most of them glance at notices for a few seconds.
Purpose: people put waste in the right bin from Monday.
Success: someone can read it in 20 seconds and know which bin to use.
Constraints: under 80 words, friendly but direct, no jargon. Use only
these three rules: paper in blue, plastic and cans in yellow, food
waste in green.

The second prompt gives the AI a target it can hit. It also gives you a way to check the result: count the words, time a quick read, and confirm the three rules match yours exactly.

Practice now

1. Pick a task you need to do this week that involves writing or planning.
2. Write one line each for audience, purpose, success criteria and constraints.
3. Put them into the template below and send it to any AI tool.
4. Check the result against your success criteria, one at a time.
5. If one criterion is not met, tell the AI which one and ask it to fix only that.

At the end you should have a result that meets your criteria, and a filled-in prompt you can save and reuse.

Copy this template

Task: [what you want made, for example a notice, an email or a plan].

Audience: [who will read or use it, and what they already know].
Purpose: [what should happen after they read it].
Success criteria: [how I will judge it, for example "can be read in
one minute" or "covers all three options"].
Constraints: [length, tone, deadline, words or topics to avoid].

Before you write, tell me in one line what you think the goal is. If
any part of my goal is unclear, ask me. Mark any facts you are unsure
about.

Asking AI to flag uncertainty does not make its answer correct. Keep checking the parts that matter.

Check the output

• Is it written for the audience you named, at their level?
• Would it achieve the purpose if you used it as it is?
• Does it meet each success criterion? Check them one at a time.
• Does it respect every constraint, including length and tone?
• Did it add facts or rules you did not give it? Remove them or check them.

Common mistakes

• Describing the topic but not the goal. "Something about recycling" is a topic. Say what should happen after someone reads the result.
• Leaving out the audience. The same content should look different for a manager and for someone on their first day. Name the reader.
• Setting success criteria nobody can check. "Make it good" cannot be tested. Use criteria you can check, such as reading time, number of points or a decision the reader must be able to make.
• Adding too many constraints at once. A long list of rules can conflict. Keep the few that matter most, and add others in follow-ups.
• Putting real names or private details into the goal. The goal works just as well with labels such as "the client" or "my team". Keep personal and company data out unless your rules allow it.