AI 101

Lesson 6 · about 6 min

Putting it to work

You have the mental model and the habits. This Lesson is just practice. It walks through five everyday tasks. Each one gives you a prompt to copy and a note on what to check in the reply. Change the details to fit your own life.

Reply to an awkward email

A coworker sent a short, cold email and you are not sure how to answer without making it worse. Give the tool the gist and the tone you want, not the real thread.

Check that it did not invent a specific date or a detail you did not give. Swap in the real date before you send.

Plan something

You want to plan a weekend trip, a birthday, or just your week, and your thoughts are scattered. Hand the tool the constraints and let it build the first draft.

A good planning reply gives you a structure to react to. Push back on it: “less driving,” “add a rainy-day option,” “we are on a tighter budget.”

Learn a new topic

You keep hearing a term and nodding along. Ask for a beginner explanation, then ask follow-ups in the same chat until it clicks.

The value is in the follow-ups. Ask “what would you compare that to?” or “what do people get wrong about this?” Keep going until you could explain it to someone else.

Summarize a long document

You have a long report, contract, or thread and 10 minutes. Ask for a summary shaped the way you need it.

Always skim the original for anything the summary might have flattened. A summary is a compression, and the tool can smooth over the one line that mattered.

Get unstuck by talking it through

You are stuck and cannot even phrase a clean question. That is fine. Describe the mess and ask the tool to help you think.

Talking a task through out loud is a real use, not a lesser one. The back-and-forth is often where the next step shows up.

Keep going

Every one of these used the same moves from Lesson 3. You give context. You say the form you want. You steer the reply with a follow-up. Re-read Lesson 3 any time a prompt is not landing.

Next, you will see a short recap of everything you have covered.

Knowledge check

  1. You want help replying to a tense email from a coworker. Which prompt gives you the most to work with?
  2. You ask a chatbot to explain a topic you know nothing about. What is the best next step after its first answer?
  3. You paste a long report in and ask for a summary. Why check the summary against the report?
  4. You are stuck on a task and not sure what to even ask. What is a good way to use a chatbot?