6.5
Tell It About Yourself Once
The setting that ends the repeating.
What you'll leave with
By the end of this lesson, you'll have written a short standing note about yourself into your AI tool's settings, so every future prompt starts with context you never have to type again.
Why this matters
By now you have typed some version of "I am a [role], writing to [kind of person], and I prefer a [tone]" a dozen times. Every major tool has a place where you can say that once, permanently.
It goes by different names (personalization, custom instructions, memory) but it is the same idea everywhere: a standing note the tool reads before every conversation. Set it up once, and every prompt you write for the rest of your life gets shorter.
The idea
Look in your tool's settings for anything called "personalization," "customize," or "custom instructions." You will find two questions, in some form: what should it know about you, and how should it respond.
Answer both in a few plain sentences. That is the whole setup.
What to know
What belongs in your standing note:
- Your role and general context: "I manage a small team at a healthcare company." "I am retired and mostly use this for personal projects."
- Your tone preferences: "Warm but direct. No corporate language. Keep answers short unless I ask for detail."
- Standing quirks worth stating once: "Never use the word 'delve.'" "I am in [country], so use my local conventions for dates and currency."
What does not belong there, the same list from Lesson 6.1: no passwords, no account numbers, no identification numbers, nothing you would not put in a shared document. A standing note is stored, which is exactly why it deserves the same five-second check as anything else you type.
Some tools also offer memory, quietly remembering details from your conversations over time. This can be genuinely convenient. It is also worth knowing it is there: check the settings, see what has been remembered, and delete anything you would rather not have on file. You are allowed to be helped and private at the same time.
Example
A complete standing note, written in two minutes:
I am in my fifties and run a small business. I use AI mostly for drafting emails, planning, and understanding documents. Keep responses concise and plain, no jargon, no bullet-point avalanches unless I ask. My tone is warm but direct. When I ask for a draft, give me one good version, not three options.
From then on, "draft a reply to this email" produces something in your register, without the paragraph of setup you used to type first.
Try this now
Open your tool's settings and find the personalization or custom instructions section. Write your standing note: role, context, tone, one or two quirks. Run the 6.1 check before saving: nothing in it you would not put in a shared document.
Then start a fresh conversation and ask for any small draft. Notice how much closer the first attempt lands.
Save this
Say it once, in settings, and every prompt you ever write gets shorter. Context you repeat is context you should store.
Quiet takeaway
You have just removed a small tax from every future conversation. This is the quietest possible productivity gain: not doing more, just never repeating yourself again.
Next
The final lesson turns everything from this course into something you keep: your personal prompt toolkit, which just got shorter, because your tool now knows who you are.