Realized I was spending more time tweaking AI prompts than actually doing the work

Used to spend 20 minutes crafting the perfect prompt for ChatGPT to write a simple email, now I just type what I mean in one sentence and fix it after. Has anyone else found that less effort on prompts gets better results?

3 comments

3 Comments

owens.laura1d ago

The thing that really changed for me was realizing the AI doesnt actually need all that context. Its kinda like talking to a person who already knows the basics you just gotta point them in the right direction. Too much detail and it starts trying to predict what you want instead of just doing the job. The real test is if you can get the same result from a one sentence prompt as you did from a paragraph long one. That tells you a lot about what the AI actually picks up on versus what youre just adding for your own peace of mind. Maybe the issue is that we treat prompts like programming when theyre really just conversation starters. Have you noticed any difference in quality between short and long prompts for different tasks?

victorhernandez1d ago

dude yes absolutely this. i was doing the same thing writing out these super detailed prompts with bullet points and context and all this stuff and half the time it would still give me something weird or off. then one day i was tired and just typed "write a quick reply to my boss saying the report is coming tomorrow" and it was perfect. like it knew exactly what i needed because i didn't overcomplicate it. now i just go in with the bare minimum and fix whatever comes out if i need to. saves so much time and honestly the results are usually better. feels like when you try too hard with the prompts you end up confusing it or making it sound robotic.

sanchez.julia1d ago

Hard to argue with results though. That approach got you exactly what you needed in one shot while the detailed prompts were giving you headaches. Maybe overthinking the tool is the real problem, not the tool itself.