7 Prompt Patterns I Actually Used at Work (Long Write-up)
I work an office job, and since last year, using AI tools at my company has basically become standard. I'll write down only the patterns that have actually worked for me so far.
- Role assignment: Starting with something like "You are a financial manager with 10 years of experience" makes the answer density change completely.
- Give examples first: If you show two examples of the output you want first, the format almost never gets thrown off.
- Specify constraints: You need to impose constraints like "within 200 characters," "as a table," or "without jargon" for it to be usable.
- Separate steps: If you ask for everything at once, it gets muddled. It's much better to split it into draft → review → polish.
- Ask for counterexamples: If you say, "Find the flaws in this logic," you get much more useful criticism.
- Verify numbers: If you have it calculate, make sure to have it double-check. It quietly gets things wrong.
- Give examples of your writing style: If I attach three pieces I wrote, the tone comes out almost similar.
The conclusion was that people who are good at prompting ultimately do less work. If you have your own patterns, please share them.
4 answers
Assigning a role really makes a huge difference, lol. It’s wild how just adding "You’re a finance manager with 10 years of experience" changes the answer quality.
Breaking steps apart and double-checking the numbers really resonates. I'll add one more thing on top: after I get the output, I ask, "Just mark the parts of your last answer that you're not sure about." Then it exposes where it's being vague itself, which makes it easier to review. When I'm preparing accounting materials, I can't use it without this—I'd be too scared. Quietly getting things wrong is the scariest thing.
Well, isn't the counterexample request a bit of an exaggeration? When you tell it to 'find what's wrong,' there are many cases where it just comes up with plausible nitpicks. I can't tell whether the model is actually pointing out logical errors or just pretending to point them out. I'm curious how many cases you've personally verified.
This is the first time I've seen someone give examples of their writing style. I didn't know about this lol. But isn't 3 examples a bit few? For me, I need at least 5 to nail down the tone, so I guess it varies by person. Anyway, saving this.