If you’ve ever been in therapy and started complaining about someone else, the therapist often “turns it around” and asks about you, your role, and your reactions to the matter.

This approach can also be a powerful way to get AI to help you. Instead of belaboring over a huge prompt that “airs the grievances” about whatever problem you’re trying to tackle, simply turn it around and ask the AI:

“Ask me the questions that you need to ask to get the information to best help me [for my problem].”

Or, a little more focused:

“Choose 4 to 6 questions that I can answer that will provide you the best context to help me with [my problem].”

In other words, make the AI do the work to “interview” you, and make it be deliberate about what context it needs to be most helpful.

(I’ve used variants of this idea before, but credit to Nate Jones for sharpening up the technique. As he points out, until recently, models were not sophisticated enough to use this method.)