The Prompt Formula That Actually Works
Why your prompts might be letting you down.
If you've ever typed "give me dinner ideas" and gotten back a wall of generic recipes you'd never actually make — that's not Claude being bad. That's the prompt being thin.
The difference between AI that feels like a chore and AI that feels like magic is one thing: how you ask. Not fancier words. Not longer questions. Just three specific pieces of information, in a predictable order.
What you're going to learn in this lesson
A three-part formula you can use for literally any request, any time. By the end of this lesson you'll rewrite one of your real prompts with it and see the difference yourself — in about 90 seconds.
The formula: Role · Task · Constraints.
Three ingredients. Say them in any order, use any words you want, but include all three:
Role
Act as my [role]. Who do you want Claude to be for this task? A dinner helper. A third-grade math tutor. A thoughtful friend. The role sets the whole tone.
Task
Do this: [exact thing]. Don't say "help with" — say the actual deliverable. "Write 3 options." "Turn this into a checklist." "Draft a reply."
Constraints
Consider this: [the details]. Everything that makes the answer useful to your life: how much time you have, who it's for, what you can't use, how long the answer should be.
Don't skip one
Role. Task. Constraints. If your prompt is missing one of those three, the answer will be generic — guaranteed.
Before and after: the dinner prompt.
Here's the most common mom-prompt in the world, and what the formula does to it.
What you'll get: ten recipes ranging from frozen pizza to coq au vin. Zero of them match what's actually in your kitchen.
Same tool. Same model. Completely different answer. You just got three dinners you could actually make tonight instead of a generic list.
What changed, specifically
Role: "practical weeknight dinner helper" — not a fancy chef. Task: "3 options I could make tonight" — a number and a timeframe. Constraints: time, ingredients, picky kid, short steps. All three R's, plain English.
Your turn. One real prompt, right now.
Pick one thing you need help with today. Not hypothetical — a real decision, email, meal, conversation, plan. Then fill in this template and paste it into Claude.
If you're stuck, pick one of these today
Reply to a school email. Plan tomorrow's lunches. Figure out a birthday party theme. Write a firm-but-kind text to a friend you need to say no to. Plan a 20-minute Saturday-morning reset of the living room. Any of them work — you just need a real one.
Paste your version into Claude. If the answer isn't quite right, that's fine — the next few lessons fix that. Just notice how much closer it is to useful than a one-line prompt would have been.
That's the whole formula.
Role. Task. Constraints. That's it.
What you can do now
- Rewrite any vague prompt in under a minute
- Spot the missing piece when an answer feels generic
- Use the same formula for dinner, emails, schedules, kid stuff — everything
- Stop accepting "meh" answers from Claude
One habit to start using today
Before you hit enter on any prompt, glance over it and ask: "Did I say who, what, and which details?" If any one is missing, add it.
Next up: Getting Specific
The formula is the skeleton. Next we'll put muscle on it: how to swap vague words like "soon" and "healthy" and "some" for details that actually make Claude useful.
Continue to Getting Specific →