These are not clever tricks for the sake of it. They are the small, boring moves that quietly give me back an hour or two every week. Steal whichever ones fit your life.

For writing

  • "Make this 30 percent shorter without losing the meaning." The single edit I use most.
  • "Rewrite this in my voice." Paste two things you have written, then your draft. It learns your rhythm fast.
  • "Give me three openings, ranked." Beating the blank page is half the battle.
  • "What is the weakest sentence here and why?" Turns the model into a tough editor.

For thinking

  • "Argue the other side." Cheap insurance against your own blind spots.
  • "Explain this like I have ten minutes and no background." Great for any dense topic.
  • "What questions am I not asking?" Surfaces the thing you missed.

For getting unstuck

  • "Give me the first 3 steps, not the whole plan." Kills overwhelm instantly.
  • "Pretend you are a checklist." Turns a fuzzy task into something you can just do.
  • "Here is what I tried and what happened. What now?" Context beats a cold question every time.

For everyday admin

  • Paste a messy block of text and ask for a clean table. Receipts, notes, lists, all of it.
  • Drop in a long thread and ask "what do I actually need to reply to?"
  • "Draft three versions: warm, neutral, firm." Perfect for awkward messages.
None of these are impressive on their own. Stacked across a week, they add up to real time back.

This list grows. I add the new ones I find to the newsletter as I go, so the freshest shortcuts always land in your inbox first.