1. Give a role and an audience
“You are an experienced HR specialist. Write for new employees without a technical background.” The role sets expertise and tone; the audience sets the level. Together they remove most generic answers.
2. Show an example
Paste one good example of what you want — a previous email, a table row, a product description — and say “in the same style”. One example often beats a paragraph of instructions.
3. Separate instructions from material
Put the text to work on between clear markers, e.g. “Text: ### … ###”. The model then knows what to process and what to do with it — and is less confused by long documents.
4. Ask for a structure
Tables, numbered steps, fixed headings or even CSV that you paste into Excel. “Return a table with columns: task, owner, deadline, risk.” Structured output is easier to check and reuse.
5. Make it check itself
End with: “Before answering, list your assumptions. After answering, check the result against my requirements and fix what doesn’t fit.” Save your best prompts in a shared document so the whole team benefits.