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Stumbled on a GPT prompt hack that saved me 3 hours of manual data entry this morning
I was stuck reformatting messy CSV exports from our old CRM, so I added a simple 'output as clean bullet points with dates' instruction and it nailed it first try, has anyone else found a random prompt tweak that just works?
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lucast812mo ago
Whoa hold on, I gotta push back a little on calling it a "random tweak". That clean bullet points with dates line is doing way more work than you might think. If your CSV was real messy, the model needs a specific pattern to follow, not just a vague "clean this up" wish. I've seen people toss in "fix my data" and get garbage back, but if you tell it exactly what you want like "extract client names, dates, and amounts in a table with no extra text", it suddenly behaves. So it's less about randomness and more about finding that one precise instruction that snaps it into shape, you know?
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casey8182mo ago
You said "random prompt tweak" - was that the only change you made or did you have to mess with the system prompt too to get it to format right?
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abbyp619d ago
That's exactly the thing @lucast81 was getting at, and it applies way beyond just this one AI task. Finding that one precise instruction is like the difference between telling someone "fix my car" versus "tighten the loose belt on the passenger side". The system prompt can help set the stage, but the real magic is in that one clear command that snaps everything into place. I've noticed this same pattern in cooking recipes, woodworking instructions, even when I ask my kid to clean their room. A vague "make it look nice" gets you half an effort, but "put all the toys in the blue bin and clothes in the hamper" gets it done right. So yeah, the random prompt tweak was the main change because it gave the model a specific target instead of a fuzzy goal.
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