At all.

Which…is kinda weird right? I’m an AI guy who spends 2 hours a day writing out “by hand” a newsletter. It’s a bit old fashioned.

Truth be told though the AIs were just not good enough. The results when writing or co-writing using AI were terrible. Not at all up to my standards. I’d spend far longer making edits than if I had just written the damn thing.

But things have changed. Now, I use Claude (specifically Projects) for co-writing, and it's been a game-changer.

This only works now because of three things:

1. Claude is a good enough model (finally)

2. I know how to give precise instructions to get the desired end result (I call this Priming and we cover it in this Part)

3. I have 300,000+ words of past content to give the model (I call this the Upload stage and we’ll cover it in the next Part)

First we’ll cover effective priming. By knowing exactly what I wanted—the format, sections, tonality, audience, and goals—I could give precise, specific instructions.

The result? An AI assistant that finally "got" me, becoming a true co-writer. My newsletter writing time dropped from 2 hours to 45 minutes, without sacrificing quality.

I still don’t write using AI - I instead use it as a ghostwriting assistant. There do remain limitations, which I’ll cover as we go along.

Right now though we're diving into the art of priming your AI assistant.

Let’s get started:

Prime directive

Why is Priming So Crucial?

Think about hiring a new employee.

You wouldn't expect them to understand a task without precise instructions, would you? And you certainly wouldn't expect them to get it right the first time. The same principle applies to AI assistants.

If you're getting bad results from your AI, chances are it's not the AI's fault—it's yours! Sorry!

As long as the task is suitable and the scope is limited (as we discussed in Part 1), the AI is up for it. The key to success is your priming.

Priming is like giving a new employee a handbook with details about their tasks, standard operating procedures, FAQs, brand guidelines and more.

Without it, you'd get generic work that doesn't align with your expectations. With proper priming, you get an assistant that feels like an extension of yourself.

The RISEN Framework for Effective Priming

To streamline the priming process, we can draw on my RISEN™ framework:

R - Role: Define the specific job of your AI assistant

I - Instructions: Provide detailed guidance on how to approach tasks

S - Steps: Break down the process into clear, sequential steps

E - End Goal: Clarify what success looks like for each task

N - Narrowing Refine and focus the assistant's outputs

Here’s a video summary if it’s helpful:

View TikTok Video