Heard a little thing on a podcast this week that's already changed how I prompt.

It's called BLUF.

Stands for Bottom Line Up Front. Apparently it's a military thing... you lead with the answer, then explain underneath. No long wind-up.

I tried it on Claude yesterday and honestly... why have I not been doing this the whole time?

You know how you ask AI a question and it gives you three paragraphs before it actually answers you? And you're sitting there scrolling like "ok but what do I DO." 🙃

BLUF kills that. You just add one line to your prompt and it gives you the call first, the reasoning after.

Here's the exact line I've been using:

"Answer BLUF. Give me the recommendation in the first line, then the reasoning underneath."

That's it. Paste it onto the end of any prompt where you want a decision, not an essay. Pricing questions, "should I do X or Y," picking a subject line... it's so good for anything where you just want the answer.

Try it today and let me know if you felt the same way I did (why the hell haven't I been doing this all along!?). 👇

1 comment

Heard a little thing on a podcast this week that's already changed how I prompt.