patrickz
Before you start
A chat assistant and a notes document. Use the practice context pack in the prompt below; no personal data needed.
Why this lesson exists
When Patrick asked his LifeQuest app for today’s workout, it knew nothing about his goal or what he had trained that week. (In the comic version, it answers “WORKOUT: MORE WORKOUT.”) Build the short, dated context pack it was missing.
The idea this guide practices: Give AI the context it actually needs. Prefer a story? Read the comic Sodium Is the Final Boss.
Do the exercise
Make a baseline
Ask for a weekly study plan without supplying context. Save the answer. Underline advice that assumes time, experience or equipment you do not have.
Separate four kinds of information
The practice pack sorts its facts under four headings. Goal is what the plan is for: learn spreadsheet formulas. Stable preferences stay true week to week: 20 minutes after dinner, one worked example at a time. Recent events are dated results that go stale: Wednesday’s IF error. Reference is a trusted source the answer should rely on, such as an official formula help page; the sample has none yet. Write your own pack under the same four headings.
Supply only what changes the decision
Paste the four sections and ask for three study sessions. Ask the assistant to identify which supplied fact supports each choice. A fact you never supplied should be marked as an assumption.
Update rather than accumulate
Change the available time to ten minutes and rerun. Remove an obsolete preference instead of leaving contradictory instructions. Save a dated context pack you can reuse next week.
Try it now with a ready-made sample
Everything is filled in. Copy it, paste it into your assistant and compare the answer with the checks below.
Plan three study sessions. Treat this context as the only facts about me, and use general knowledge for study ideas. Goal: learn spreadsheet formulas. Stable preferences: 20 minutes after dinner; one worked example at a time. Recent events: Monday my SUM exercise worked; Wednesday my IF formula returned an error; Thursday I skipped practice. Reference: none supplied yet. For each session give an action, a duration, and the supplied fact it relies on (or “general knowledge”). List missing information separately. Do not invent my history.
Adapt it to your own task
Replace the bracketed parts with your own details.
Plan three study sessions. Treat this context as the only facts about me, and use general knowledge for study ideas. Goal: [goal]. Stable preferences: [preferences]. Recent events: [events]. Reference: [source excerpt]. For each session give an action, a duration, and the supplied fact it relies on (or “general knowledge”). List missing information separately. Do not invent my history.
Worked example
If the pack says you have ten minutes and already know SUM, a useful answer might practice one IF example. A 90-minute beginner video on addition fails both constraints.
- Sample context pack (fictional)
- Goal: learn spreadsheet formulas. Stable preferences: 20 minutes after dinner. Recent events: SUM worked Monday; IF returned an error Wednesday. Reference: none supplied yet.
- An answer that passes
- Session 1: 20 min. Redo one IF example step by step (relies on: Recent events, IF error; Stable preferences, 20 minutes). Sessions 2 and 3 each name the supplied fact they rely on, or “general knowledge”. Missing information: which spreadsheet app, and the exact error message.
- Then change one fact
- Set the time to ten minutes and rerun. Every session should shrink. A plan that stays the same fails the third check.
Check your result
Use evidence from your output. A confident explanation from the AI is not enough.
If it isn’t working
If the answer remains generic, remove background biography and add one concrete recent result. If facts conflict, resolve the conflict yourself before rerunning.
Optional. Progress stays in this browser.
Next in the beginner path: Ask why before asking AI to build →
Where this came from
Adapted from the archived LinkedIn theme “Sodium Is the Final Boss.” See the post coverage and editorial method.
Prepared September 2026. Tools and interfaces change; use current official setup instructions. Session lengths are estimates.