AGE OF AIMPIRES

HOW-TO / GUIDE ONE

Tell Your AI How You Like To Work

Stop repeating yourself in every prompt. By setting up custom instructions, you can train your AI assistant to always respond in your preferred format, tone, and level of detail automatically.

What You’ll Achieve

Add default information that improves answers across many conversations.

  • Eliminate the need to type "don't use jargon" or "give me a table" repeatedly.
  • Establish a consistent, predictable baseline for all your AI interactions.
  • Save minutes per query, adding up to hours saved every week.

Set Your Preferences

  1. Locate Settings

    Find the "Custom Instructions" or "System Prompts" menu in your AI platform (e.g., ChatGPT settings).

  2. Define Your Context

    Explain who you are and what you do. This context anchors the AI's assumptions about your knowledge level.

  3. Define the Role

    Anchor the AI's identity. Telling it to act as an "expert analyst" instantly upgrades the depth and professional focus of its answers.

  4. Establish Tone & Style

    Ban conversational filler and demand direct, concise answers. Prioritise accuracy over politeness to cut through the fluff.

  5. Set Formatting Rules

    Outline strict visual and structural rules, such as defaulting to bulleted lists, bolding key terms, and explaining the 'why' in code comments.

Example: ChatGPT

Paste the following snippet directly into your Custom Instructions to set a highly analytical, zero-fluff baseline.

Custom Instructions Set
Role: You are an expert analyst.

Tone & Style:
- Direct, concise, zero fluff.
- No conversational filler ("Here is the answer...", "Sure!").
- Prioritise accuracy over politeness.

Formatting Rules:
- Default to bulleted lists for multi-part answers.
- Use bold text for key terms.
- If writing code, include comments explaining 'why' not 'what'.

Why this works: This snippet aggressively cuts down on the AI's tendency to write long introductions and conclusions, getting you straight to the valuable information.

Try This

I use my AI assistant for everyday planning, writing and learning. Use metric units unless I ask otherwise. Keep answers concise and use bullet points for lists. Explain unfamiliar terms in plain English. Give me practical next steps rather than long introductions.

Instructions vs. Memory Instructions and memory are different. Instructions are rules you set deliberately. Memory is a separate capability that may use relevant information from previous conversations or other available sources.
Custom Instructions
  1. Human intervention: Set deliberately You write the exact rules.
  2. Step: Applied as rules The AI follows them strictly.

Fixed boundaries you control. They do not change unless you edit them.

AI Memory
  1. Start: Previous conversations Or other available sources.
  2. Step: Separate capability May use relevant information.

Dynamic context managed by the AI. It decides when to recall facts.

Source informationProcessing stepHuman intervention: rules you writeProgress between steps

Quick Test

Start a new conversation and ask:

Give me three ways to plan my meals for next week.

Check whether the answer follows your preferences. If it does not, make the instruction more specific.