Build your prompt library

Here is the pattern almost everyone falls into. You write a genuinely good prompt. It works. You close the tab. Next Tuesday you need the same thing and reconstruct it from memory, slightly worse.

The fix takes about thirty seconds per prompt and compounds for years.

Templates are prompts with slots

Take the request that worked and replace the specifics with labelled blanks:

Meeting notes → actions Turn the notes below into action items. One line each: owner — action — deadline. Flag anything with no clear owner. If a deadline was discussed but not agreed, write “proposed”.

Audience: [WHO READS THIS] Notes: [PASTE]

Everything you learned in this module is baked in — task verb, format specimen, audience slot, an explicit rule for the ambiguous case. You never have to think it through again. You just fill the slots.

Six of these will cover most of what you do repeatedly.

Keep it portable

Assistants offer built-in saved prompts, custom instructions, project memories. Use them — they’re convenient. But keep the master copy in plain text you own: a note, a document, a file in a repo.

Two reasons, and both will eventually apply to you. Tools change: features get renamed, restructured or withdrawn, and pricing moves. And you will want to compare — E2·L10’s method only works if you can run the identical prompt against two assistants, which means it has to live somewhere neither of them controls.

A plain text file survives all of that. A saved prompt inside one product does not.

What earns a place

Not everything deserves saving. A prompt qualifies when it is repeated, non-obvious, and verified — you’ve used it more than twice, it took some working out, and you’ve checked its output is actually good.

That last one matters. A template that reliably produces confident, unchecked output is worse than no template, because it makes an error routine.

Let them age out

Templates are not permanent. Models change, your work changes, and a prompt that was carefully tuned around a limitation may be solving a problem that no longer exists.

Date them. When one starts underperforming, rewrite or delete it. A small library you trust beats a large one you’ve stopped reading.

Try it now (6 minutes)

Scroll back through this module and find the prompt that produced your best result. Rewrite it with slots, give it a name, and paste it somewhere you’ll find it — today, not later.

That’s one. You need about five more, and you’ll collect them by noticing when you type something for the second time.

Check your understanding

1. A prompt becomes a template when you: Save it in the assistant's favourites Replace the specifics with clearly marked slots Make it longer and more detailed

2. Why keep the master copy in plain text you own? Plain text produces better answers Tools change, and comparing assistants needs a prompt neither controls Assistants cannot store long prompts

3. A template that reliably produces confident, unchecked output is: Fine, since it saves time Worse than no template — it makes an error routine Acceptable if it is fast

Recap

Turn what worked into slotted templates, keep the master copy portable, save only what is repeated, non-obvious and verified, and retire templates as they age. That completes E3 — you now brief clearly, iterate deliberately, correct with substance, and know which requests to refuse yourself.