People want the 'one perfect prompt'. The truth is more useful: great output comes from a short chain of prompts, each doing one job well. Here's the workflow I use to produce a week of content in about an hour — and why each step matters.
Step 1 — Set the context once
Start by giving the model your audience, your voice, your goals and a few examples of writing you like. This 'context block' gets reused for everything that follows, so the model stops guessing who it's writing for.
Step 2 — Diverge on ideas
Ask for far more ideas than you need — angles, hooks, questions your audience actually asks. Quantity first; you'll curate next. The goal here is range, not polish.
Step 3 — Converge and outline
Pick the strongest ideas and have the model outline each one: the promise, the key points, the takeaway. Editing an outline is ten times faster than editing a finished draft.
Step 4 — Draft, then direct
Now draft — but treat the first output as raw material. The skill is in the follow-up: 'make the opening sharper', 'cut the fluff', 'add a concrete example'. Directing the model is where quality lives.
Step 5 — Format for the channel
Finally, reshape one piece into the formats you need — a post, a thread, a newsletter blurb — each with the right length and tone. One idea, many outputs.
Prompting isn't about clever words. It's about giving context, breaking the work into steps, and directing the output like an editor.
This step-by-step prompting — including chain-of-thought and editing technique — is core to every kenai workshop and the bootcamp.