GlossaryIn practice
In practice
Where do I start?
A practice is a short exercise you run yourself, in the assistant you already use: a work situation, three steps, and a result you keep. Ten minutes at most, with nothing to install. Most of the time the instruction is given word for word: you copy it as it stands, then adjust it to your own case.
Framing
3 practices- 01The anatomy of an instructionYou are getting answers that are correct but generic, and you have no idea what to change in your request.
- 02Show rather than describeYou cannot describe the style or the format you want. “Be more concise” and “be more direct” get you nowhere.
- 03The instruction you keepA request you make every week, identically, retyping it from memory each time.
Questioning
3 practices- 04Restate before executingA long or ambiguous request, which you can already feel is going to head somewhere you did not intend.
- 05What is missing to answerAny request of any weight, the kind you can feel will come back half done.
- 06The interviewYou know something in depth and cannot get it written down: a scoping note, a position, a lesson learned that only you hold.
Deciding
3 practices- 07The committeeAn idea you are carrying alone, and nobody around you has the time or the standing to contradict it seriously before the meeting.
- 08The devil’s advocateA decision you have already made, and are rather pleased with.
- 09The table and its gapsTwo options to choose between: a supplier, a method, a tool.
Producing
3 practices- 10Breaking it downA request the system fails at every single time, however you rephrase it.
- 11The shape you imposeThe same information reaches you in twenty different shapes: emails, minutes, notes taken in meetings.
- 12Handing overA repetitive task only you know how to do, and that nobody has ever written down.
Checking
3 practices- 13Criteria written firstYou have to judge a piece of work, yours or someone else’s, and “it’s good” or “it doesn’t work” is all that comes to you.
- 14The document you have no time to readA report, a contract, a forty-page set of minutes that has been waiting a week.
- 15What you pasted this weekYou have been using AI for a few weeks, without really having thought about it.
A practice is not a tip: it always cites at least one term, and its page takes you there. If you would rather start with the words, the guided paths put the terms in the order in which they explain one another.