Using a Robust Prompt

I've created here a generalized packing list prompt, and I want to use this as an opportunity to demonstrate the various ways that you can enhance the response that you get back from Toby by enhancing your prompt. I want to analyze this prompt a bit and get some understanding of the types of criteria that you need to provide to Toby, for him to provide you with good information.

Now, what a lot of people might do is to just ask Toby the bare minimum. In other words, "Give me a packing list for Germany." But that isn't really not enough information. He'll generate a packing list using no more than that criteria. But if you give him additional parameters, he's going to do a much better job for you.

So real briefly on my settings, I'm going to be casual because I'm gonna be writing in a way that I'll be delivering to my clients who I know. uStyle is going to be conversational, creative, and descriptive. For "Format" I'm going to use normal chat.

Finally, under GPT controls, you can use either 3 or 4 for something like this exercise. For Temperature, I'm going to leave it geared up to 1. Temperature really controls how creative versus how analytical the response will be, and I like leaving it all the way up here to the most creative setting.

So now we look at our prompts, and here's the prompt I want to use.

Prompt: Write a packing list for my female clients traveling to Germany in September. Most clients will vacation for a week. They have no special activities planned aside from sightseeing. At least one night they will probably want something very dressy to wear out. Include mention of medications, travel documentation, insurance papers, sun protection, and skin care for the cold, dry air, as well as toiletries. Mention credit cards and spare cash as well as to consider a money belt or other way to protect valuable personal items. Also, any electronics she may need to carry with them, and work-related items if they are going to work on this trip. Any other suggestions are welcome.

So this is a generalized packing list for female clients. I'm not going to get into the entire realm of gender identity but I want to use female here because people who are traveling as a female are going to have different needs than people who are male, typically. If your situation, if your client's situation is different, then you can adjust the prompt.

I've told Toby they're going to Germany in September. Giving a time frame helps in Toby know what types of clothing the client should take versus, say, going in June or going in December. I'm gonna say it for a week. I'm saying there are no special activities involved

Now, if there is a special activity, for example, if they're going biking or if they're going to be doing a lot of hiking, that's a whole different realm of equipment. So here I would want to include that if that were the case. But now I'm just saying no special activities. Then at least one night, the client wants something dressy. At least one night, they're gonna dress up a little bit to go out to eat. I mention medications, travel, documentation, insurance, papers, sun protection, and something for skin care as well as toiletries. I mention credit cards and spare cash and consider a money belt or other way to protect viable personal items. Also, electronics, if they're going to be working.

Notice what I've done here is outline all the parameters that I want Toby to address. I could have gone bare minimum. But by including those parameters, I know he's going to address it.

Let's see where he goes with this. So we click confirm and Toby gets to work. All right. Now, that's a pretty good list.
Next, I am going to ask for a rewrite, using bullet points, and request that Toby throw in some emojis. Let's see what Toby does with this.

Now, if we copy this and look at it as we paste it into Word, we get the bullet points.

I hope that helps you get a better grasp of some of the necessities of doing a very full, robust prompt to get a full robust reply.