I Put Together Prompts for Summarizing Internal Documents

I shared with my team the prompts I use to summarize meeting notes and planning documents, and the response was good, so I'm posting them here too. It worked well regardless of whether the model was GPT or Claude.

The basic framework is as follows.

• Role: You are a PM with 10 years of experience.
• Goal: Summarize the document below into 3 categories (key decisions / issues under discussion / next actions).
• Constraints: Never add anything not in the original text. If uncertain, write "not specified in the document."
• Format: Within 2 lines per item, as bullets.

The most effective part was the single line "Do not add content that isn't in the original text." Without it, the model makes up plausible action items on its own.

Also, if the document is long, don't just put it in all at once; splitting it by chapter, summarizing, and then re-summarizing the summaries was much more accurate. Once it goes over 30 pages, it tends to forget the earlier parts.

One caveat: never upload documents containing personal information or HR-related documents. Make sure to check your company's internal policies.