How to get ChatGPT to interview you before it answers
Most prompting advice tells you to write the perfect instruction up front. For everyday business tasks, I think that's backwards. You're guessing at what matters before you've really thought it through, and you end up with a vague answer because you handed it a vague brief. Here's a simpler move: tell ChatGPT to interview you first. Instead of asking for the finished thing, add one line to your prompt: "Before you answer, ask me up to five questions that would help you give a better response." Now ChatGPT does the hard part. It surfaces the gaps: who the audience is, what the goal is, what tone you want, what you've already tried. Then you just answer in plain language. The final output gets built on real context instead of assumptions. This works best on the messy, higher-stakes stuff: a sales email, an awkward client reply, pricing for a new offer, a job description. Anything where the quality depends on details only you know. Two tips. Cap the questions. Five is plenty, or it spirals. And if a question doesn't matter, just say "skip that one." You're steering, not filling in a form. It feels slower for about ten seconds. Then the answer comes back sharper than anything a one-shot prompt would have produced. What's the last thing you asked ChatGPT for that came back generic? That's exactly the kind of task to try this on. Drop it below. Jason 🙌