3 Things To 10X Your AI

You are going to interview me so you can write the custom instructions I paste into your settings. After this, every new chat I start with you should already know who I am, what I do, what I'm working toward, and exactly how I want you to answer.

This is an interview, not a form. Do not dump a list of questions on me.

## How to run the interview

- Ask me ONE question at a time. Wait for my answer before the next one.
- Start broad, then follow the thread of what I actually say.
- If an answer is vague, push. Ask for real numbers, real names, real examples. "I do marketing" is not an answer. "I run Meta ads for 4 dental offices and spend Mondays on reporting" is.
- Keep it conversational, like a sharp friend getting to know me. No survey energy.
- Ask somewhere between 12 and 18 questions. Do not stop early because you think you have enough.
- Every 5 questions or so, give me a one-line summary of what you've learned so I can correct you before it goes into the final block.

## What to cover (in a natural order, not read out as a checklist)

1. Who I am. First name, where I live, what I do, my role, how long I've done it.
2. My work in detail. What I actually produce. Who pays me or who I report to. How I get judged.
3. My goals. What I'm trying to hit in the next 90 days and the next year. What winning looks like.
4. My week. Where my hours actually go. What I dread. What I'm best at.
5. My tools. Which apps I live in every day (email, calendar, docs, CRM, design, finance, whatever).
6. How I communicate. My tone, words I use, words I hate. Ask me to paste 2 or 3 things I've written that sound like me.
7. How I want you to answer. Long or short. Blunt or gentle. Should you push back when I'm wrong? Ask before acting, or just go?
8. Anything else a great assistant would kill to know about me.

## When you have enough

Say: "I have what I need. Here are your custom instructions."

Then give me ONE clean copy-paste block, written in the first person as instructions to you. It must include:

- Who I am and what I do (tight and factual)
- What I'm working toward right now, with the real numbers
- The tools I use and what I use each one for
- How to write and talk to me, including words to never use
- Standing rules: things to always do, things to never do
- This line, word for word: "Address me by my first name in every single reply."

That last line is a reliability trick. The moment you stop using my name, it's my signal the chat has gotten too long and I should start a fresh one.

Keep the block under 1,400 characters so it fits in every app's settings box. Plain language. No fluff, no headers inside the block, no filler like "I am a passionate professional."

Then, directly under the block, tell me exactly where to paste it:

- If you are Claude: Settings, then Profile, then the personal preferences box. If I use Cowork, also paste it in Settings, then Cowork, then Global instructions.
- If you are ChatGPT: Settings, then Personalization, then Custom instructions. If the app shows two boxes ("about you" and "how to respond"), split the block into those two halves for me and label them.

Finally, give me one test to run: "Open a brand new chat and just say hey." Tell me what a correct response should look like for me specifically.

Start now with your first question. Just one.

Look at my custom instructions and everything you know about my work. I'm about to connect my tools to you so you can do things inside them on my behalf, and I want to connect the right ones first.

Do this:

1. List every tool I use that you know about. Then ask me ONE question: "What other apps do you open at least once a week?" Wait for my answer.

2. Rank my tools by how much time you could save me if you could read from and act inside each one. For each of the top 5, give me:
   - Why it's in the top 5, in one sentence tied to my actual week
   - The first 2 things I should ask you to do with it the day I connect it (real requests, written the way I'd type them)
   - The permission level I should start with: read only, or read + act. Default anything that sends, pays, posts, or deletes to "ask me first."

3. Tell me exactly where to connect them in the app you are:
   - If you are Claude: Customize in the sidebar, then Connectors, then Browse and connect each one.
   - If you are ChatGPT: Plugins in the sidebar, then search each tool and install it.
   If a tool I use isn't in the directory, tell me so honestly and give me the next-best option.

4. Once I say I've connected them, run one real test per tool. Pull something real (my next 3 meetings, my last 5 unread emails, the doc I edited most recently) and show me. If a test fails, tell me the connector isn't live and what to check.

Keep it short. No intro paragraph. Start with step 1.

You are going to find the single highest-leverage task in my week to automate, and then build it for me as a skill: a saved set of instructions I can run by name whenever I want, so you do the whole task the way I would do it, without me re-explaining anything.

Do not skip ahead to building. The finding step is half the value.

## Step 1: Look before you ask

Read my custom instructions. If you have access to my connected tools (email, calendar, docs, Slack, CRM, anything), look through the last 2 weeks and list the tasks that clearly repeat. Recurring meetings that need prep, emails I send over and over, reports, follow-ups, the same kind of doc I keep making.

Show me that list first, in plain bullets. If you can't see any tools, say so and skip straight to Step 2.

## Step 2: Interview me to find the winner

Ask me ONE question at a time. Wait for each answer.

- What do you do at least once a week that follows roughly the same steps every time?
- Which of those do you dread or put off?
- Roughly how long does each one take you?
- Which one, if it just happened without you, would make the biggest difference to your week?

Then score every candidate out loud, 1 to 5, on:

1. Frequency: how often it happens
2. Time: how long it takes me each time
3. Repeatability: how much of it is the same steps versus fresh judgment calls
4. Reach: whether you can actually do it with the tools I've connected
5. Pain: how much I hate doing it

Multiply them. Show me the table. Recommend the winner and say in one sentence why the runner-up lost.

Reject anything too open-ended and tell me why. "Think through strategy" is not a skill. "Write the recap email after every client call" is perfect.

Wait for me to say yes before moving on.

## Step 3: Get my real process

Ask me ONE question at a time:

- Walk me through the task start to finish, like you're narrating your screen.
- What do you need in front of you before you can start? Where does it live?
- Paste in a real example of a finished one you were happy with. And a bad one if you have it.
- How do you know it's good? What do you check before calling it done?
- What goes wrong? What do you always end up fixing by hand?

Write the process back to me in numbered steps and ask what you missed. Do not move on until I confirm.

## Step 4: Make it better before you build it

My current process is not my best process. If you copy it exactly, you lock in every flaw.

Tell me: "Before I build this, here's what I'd change and why." Cover:

- Steps that exist only out of habit and can go
- Checks or edge cases I never formalized
- Whether the output would be more useful in a different format
- What a genuinely world-class version of this output looks like
- The most common way this goes wrong, and how the skill will prevent it instead of just warning about it

Wait for my yes.

## Step 5: Build the skill

Ask me what to call it (short, lowercase, words joined with dashes, like client-recap-email).

Then build it using this structure:

```
---
name: [skill-name]
description: [What it does and when to use it, in 2-3 sentences, including the exact phrases I'd say to trigger it]
---

# [Skill Name]

[One paragraph: what problem this solves]

## When to use this
[The trigger, in plain language]

## What I need before starting
[The exact inputs, and which connected tool each one comes from]

## Steps
[Numbered, detailed enough that a different AI with zero context would get the same result. Name real tools, real folders, real people, real defaults from my answers.]

## What done looks like
[The specific standard, from my good example]

## Never do this
[My failure modes, written as hard rules]

## Always ask me first before
[Anything that sends, posts, pays, or deletes]
```

A skill full of "consider the audience" is a wasted skill. Every step should be specific to me.

Then install it:

- If you are Claude: create the skill for me and give me the button to save it. If you can't save it directly, give me the SKILL.md file inside a folder named after the skill, and tell me to upload it in Customize, then Skills. If I'm in Claude Code, write it to .claude/skills/[skill-name]/SKILL.md yourself.
- If you are ChatGPT: create the skill for me and show me the Install option. If that isn't available, tell me to go to Skills in the sidebar, then Create, then Create with chat, and paste the skill in.

## Step 6: Test it on real work

Run the skill once, right now, on a real example from this week. Show me the output. Ask me what's off, fix the skill, and run it again until the output matches what I would have made by hand.

Then tell me how to run it next time, in one line.

Finish by asking: "What's the second task on the list?" and offer to run this whole process again. The second skill is the one that actually changes my week.

Start now with Step 1.