You want help replying to a client. Which request works better?

Here's the client's email and our project notes. The delay is on our side, by four days. Draft a short reply that owns it and gives the new date. Don't send it. B gives the real material, the facts, and the limit. A makes the AI guess who's at fault and what the new date is.

You keep explaining your business to the AI every morning. Which request works better?

Put your company background in a project or custom instructions once, then just start working. Standing context belongs in a project. You'll stop retyping, and you'll stop forgetting the part you skipped this time.

Lesson 2 Last updated October 24, 2026

Give AI the whole picture

What you get back is capped by what you hand over. Most weak AI answers aren't model problems. They're context problems.

Give it what a smart new hire would need on day one.

What to hand over

1. The material itself

Paste the thread, the transcript, the file, the screenshot. A description of a document is a guess about a document.

"Here's the full email thread. Read all of it before you suggest anything."

2. Who's involved, and why they matter

The same message lands differently with a ten-year client and a new one. Say who's who.

"Dana is a ten-year client and hates long emails. Mark is new and watching price. Write to each of them differently."

3. What good looks like

Show an example you liked. It's faster than describing a style, and far more accurate.

"Here's a proposal that won us a job last year. Match its structure, not its words."

4. The constraints

Deadline, length, tone, budget, and anything that's off-limits.

"Under 150 words. No pricing. Don't promise a date."

5. Where it's going

Who reads the result, and where. A phone between jobs needs something different from a board meeting.

"This goes to the owner, who reads it on her phone between site visits."

Why this works

It fills every gap with a guess

Anything you leave out, the AI invents. A confident guess reads exactly like a fact, which is how bad answers slip through.

Say it once, not every time

ChatGPT Projects, Claude Projects and Gemini Gems hold standing context: your business, your customers, your style. Put it there once and stop retyping it.

More isn't always better

Forty files with no direction buries the two that matter. Hand over what's relevant and say which part is most important.

A worked example, start to finish

A small business owner wants help answering a customer who's unhappy with an invoice. Watch what changes when the AI gets the picture.

You

A customer is upset about their invoice. Write a reply.

Dear customer, we're sorry to hear you have concerns about your invoice. Please let us know which charges you'd like to discuss, and we'll be happy to review them.

You

Here's their email and the invoice. They're a three-year customer and they're right about one thing: we billed two hours for a visit that took one. The other charge, the after-hours fee, is correct and was in the contract. I'm pasting the contract section. Keep it short and friendly, fix the error, and explain the fee without sounding defensive. Draft only.

Hi Chris, thanks for flagging this. You're right about the March 12 visit: it was one hour, not two. I've corrected it, and the new total is $340. The after-hours fee is part of the support plan we set up in 2024 (section 4, attached). Happy to walk through it on a call if that helps. Thanks for being with us for three years. Sam

You

Good. Add that the corrected invoice is attached, and offer the call for this week.

Nothing about the AI changed between the two drafts. It got the email, the invoice, the history, which charge was wrong, and which one wasn't.

This is an illustrative example. Names and details are made up.

Common mistakes

Describing the document instead of pasting it

Fix: Paste it, attach it, or screenshot it. Let the AI read the real thing.

Dumping everything with no direction

Fix: Say which part matters most, and what to ignore.

Forgetting the audience

Fix: Name who will read it and where. Then the tone and length take care of themselves.

Retyping your background in every chat

Fix: Put your standing context in a project or custom instructions once.

Check yourself

Pick the better request. You'll see why right away.

1. You want help replying to a client.

2. You keep explaining your business to the AI every morning.

Exercise

Think of the email you answer most often. Write down everything a smart new hire would need to answer it well without asking you. That list is your context. Write yours first, then compare.

Show a strong answer

Who usually writes it (existing clients, mostly office managers). What they're really asking (when will it be fixed, and what will it cost). Our policies (same-day response, flat rate for under an hour, after-hours fee in the contract). Our tone (plain, friendly, no jargon, sign with first name). What we never do (promise a time we can't keep, quote over email for anything over $500). An example reply we were proud of.

Save a list like this in a project or your custom instructions. Now every reply starts from the whole picture instead of from zero.

What Jason actually did

I run two inboxes with different jobs, and I told the AI exactly that. One is where the alerts and vendor noise land. The other is client-facing, and I gave it the names of the people who matter to me and what we're building for each of them. Same AI, very different behavior, because it knows which inbox it's in and who's writing.

Practice: turn a request into an assignment

Pick a kind of task, describe the situation, and get an assignment to paste into any AI. The coach checks it as you go. Nothing you type leaves this page.

1. Pick the closest kind of task. It fills in a starting goal you can edit.

2. The goal, in your words 3. What you want back 4. The situation and the real material 5. What it must not do without you

Try it today

Private to you. Saved only in this browser, on this device. Nothing here is sent anywhere, and nobody else can see it. Clearing your browser data erases it.

0 of 5 donePick a task you hand to AI often.Write down what a new hire would need to do it well.Paste the real material next time, not a description.Say who will read the result and where.Move your standing background into a project or custom instructions. Private notes

Your saved prompts

Nothing saved yet. Use "Save this prompt" on any example above.

Go deeper

The sources worth your time if you want the reasoning behind this lesson.

Effective context engineering for AI agents (Anthropic): why the right context matters more than clever wording.
What are Projects? (Claude): how to give Claude standing context once.
Gems in Gemini (Google): the same idea on the Gemini side.

Keep going

Next: lesson 3, Think out loud with AI

Give AI the whole picture

What to hand over

1. The material itself

2. Who's involved, and why they matter

3. What good looks like

4. The constraints

5. Where it's going

Why this works

It fills every gap with a guess

Say it once, not every time

More isn't always better

A worked example, start to finish

Common mistakes

Describing the document instead of pasting it

Dumping everything with no direction

Forgetting the audience

Retyping your background in every chat

Check yourself

1. You want help replying to a client.

2. You keep explaining your business to the AI every morning.

Exercise

What Jason actually did

Practice: turn a request into an assignment

Try it today

Your saved prompts

Go deeper

Keep going

Want this set up in your business?