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Give an auditor a status line for every requested item
Practice: Asking for a format you can use. About 5 minutes.
About this exercise
Your outside auditor sent a list of 5 requested documents. Reply with exactly 5 numbered lines in the auditor's order, each in the form "Item: Status - detail", where Status is exactly Ready, In progress or Not ours. Give a date for anything in progress and name who owns anything that isn't yours. Keep it under 90 words, plain text. Write a prompt that gets you exactly that.
Common mistakes when you ask AI for this
- No fixed shape. The AI writes a friendly email with paragraphs per item. Try: Be exact: "Exactly 5 numbered lines, in her order: Item: Status - detail."
- Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting. Ask for "under 90 words" and it often lands well over. Try: Cap each part instead: "each detail under 10 words."
- Inventing status words. The AI uses Done, Pending, Partially complete, Waiting, so the auditor can't sort. Try: Add: "Status is exactly Ready, In progress or Not ours."
- Leaving out dates and owners. The AI says "in progress" without a date or doesn't say who owns payroll. Try: Add: "Give a date for In progress items and name the owner for Not ours."
What a strong prompt includes
- Uses exact status labels
- Keeps her order
- Asks for dates and owners
- Sets the number of lines
- Sets a word limit
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