Found a weird prompt trick for ChatGPT that saved me 3 hours of formatting

I was trying to get an AI writing tool to turn my messy notes into a clean email for a client in Boston. I kept getting paragraphs that sounded like a robot wrote them. So on a whim I added 'pretend you are a tired office worker who just wants to go home' to the prompt. It came out perfect on the first try - short sentences, a little informal, no fluff. I tested it on a few other tasks too, like rewriting a boring report for my boss. Each time it cut down the back-and-forth editing by like 80 percent. Has anyone else stumbled into a random prompt that just clicked for their workflow?

3 comments

3 Comments

felixfisher2mo ago

I added "pretend you write like a bored guy from the midwest" once and it worked exactly the same way. The key is giving it a real human constraint instead of vague instructions like "make it sound natural." Most people overthink their prompts trying to sound professional, but telling it to be tired or bored just strips out all that corporate nonsense. I've been using "write like someone who failed English class twice" for internal memos and my team actually finishes them now.

felix1472mo agoProlific Poster

Honestly that "failed English class twice" prompt is genius. I might steal that for my own notes tbh. It really does cut through all the fluff.

rose_cooper1mo ago

Wait, hold on. Did you say you tested this on a report for your boss? That's wild. I would be scared my boss would figure out and think I'm lazy. But honestly the 'tired office worker' thing makes total sense. @felix147 you calling it "genius" is exactly right because it's so simple. I bet half the prompts people write are way too complicated. Giving it that boring human feeling just cuts out all the robot speak. I might try this for my grocery list next just to see what happens.