LESSON 4 OF 6
Iterate instead of restarting
BY THE END OF THIS LESSON
Turn a mediocre first answer into a good one in two moves.
The most common mistake
You get a weak answer, so you delete the chat and rewrite the prompt from scratch. You have just thrown away the most valuable thing in the conversation: a concrete example of what you do not want.
The first answer is not the product. It is the first draft, and it is diagnostic.
Three moves that almost always work
Name the flaw. "This is too generic — it could be about any company. Rewrite it so it could only be about this one."
Ask it to diagnose. "Before rewriting: what are the three weakest parts of that draft?" Models are markedly better at critiquing than at getting it right first time.
Constrain harder. "Same idea, but 60 words, no adjectives, and open with the number."
When to actually start over
Restart when the conversation has gone somewhere wrong and keeps drifting back — a long thread accumulates its own bad context. If you have corrected the same thing three times and it keeps returning, open a fresh chat and put the correction in the opening prompt.
WORKED EXAMPLE
RESTARTING
[deletes chat] "Write me a better product description for a standing desk."
ITERATING
That description would fit any standing desk on the market. Two problems: it leads with features instead of the reason someone buys, and "premium quality" is a claim with nothing behind it. Rewrite it. Lead with the back pain. Replace every unsupported claim with a specific fact from the spec sheet I gave you. Keep it under 90 words.
The second version tells the model exactly what failed and what to do instead. It keeps the spec sheet, the product and the earlier context — all of which the restart threw away.
YOUR TURN
Make the model critique its own work before it rewrites.
RUN THIS
You are going to help me improve something you wrote. First, list the three weakest things about your last response — be blunt, and do not include anything you think is actually fine just to reach three. Then ask me which of the three matters most to me. Only after I answer, write the improved version.
What a good result looks like
The self-critique is usually sharper than the original draft. If it lists three trivial things, say "those are cosmetic — what is structurally wrong with it?"
KNOWLEDGE CHECK
Answer all 2 correctly to complete this lesson.
1. You get a weak first answer. What is usually the best next move?
2. When is starting a fresh chat genuinely the right call?
REMEMBER THIS
A bad first answer is information — name the flaw rather than deleting the evidence.