Daily AI CatchupThe Prompt on a Budget
Keep only the lines of a prompt that actually change the output. Everything else is just politeness tax.
About 2 min to play
0 / 8
Write a prompt that gets a good paragraph rewrite — without spending the budget on padding.
Rewrite the paragraph below in a friendlier tone.
10 tok- Please, if it's not too much trouble, could you possibly help me out here...14
- Keep it under 80 words.6
- I am a very busy professional and I value your time greatly.11
- [Paragraph to rewrite: pasted here]25
- Please think very carefully and try your absolute best.10
- Match the tone of a friendly coworker, not a press release.13
- Here are three full examples of a good rewrite, start to finish: ...40
Why this matters
A prompt isn't a letter to a person — it's a set of instructions to a system that reads every word the same way, whether it's the actual task or three sentences about how busy you are. Softeners, apologies, and vague pep talks ("please try your absolute best") don't make a model try harder. They cost tokens and add nothing it can act on.
What actually earns its place in a prompt is anything the model couldn't infer on its own: the concrete task, a real constraint it can check itself against, a specific target it can aim for. A generic instruction like "be friendlier" is weaker than a concrete one like "match the tone of a friendly coworker" — not because it's shorter, but because it's more actionable.
This is the same lesson as trimming a cluttered context window, just one level up: before you ever get to what to keep in the conversation, there's what to keep in the instruction that starts it.
What you'll learn
- Softeners and pleasantries cost tokens without giving the model anything new to act on
- A concrete, checkable constraint beats a vague exhortation to "try harder" or "do your best"
- Backstory about the user rarely changes what a correct output actually looks like
- A specific style anchor ("like a friendly coworker") is more actionable than a generic adjective ("friendlier")
This game goes with The Prompt Habit That's Quietly Wasting Your Tokens.