The idea: what you ask an AI tool, and how you ask it, is your work. It should live outside the app too. This guide gives you five steps to make that happen - nothing technical, one afternoon.
Create your prompts document
Open a document in a place that is yours: your email, your drive, your company's shared folder. It doesn't matter which one. What matters is that it isn't inside the tool.
Name it something clear: "My prompts" or "AI prompts - [your name]". Everything in the following steps goes there.
Copy your three most-used prompts
For each prompt you use regularly, write three things in your document:
- What it's for (one line).
- The full prompt, exactly as you paste it into the tool.
- What you change each time - for example: the customer's name, the date, the product.
Start with the three you use most. You can add more later.
Save your standing instructions
Many AI tools have a place for fixed instructions: how you want it to write, your tone, your business name and what you do. If yours does, copy that text into the same document.
This is often the most valuable thing to save. A well-tuned standing instruction took time to write. Without a copy outside the app, it's lost the day you switch tools.
Export what you can
Look in your tool's settings for an option to export or download your information. If it has one, do it once and save the file with the date in its name.
If you don't see an export option, copy by hand what matters: conversations that worked as a model and results you use regularly. You don't need everything - just the ones you'd miss.
Set a review date
Every month, five minutes: open the document and ask yourself one question - is there a new prompt I now use a lot? If yes, add it.
That's the whole system. A document you own, updated once a month, with the prompts that matter to your work.
What this guide doesn't do
It doesn't tell you which tool to use and compares none. Nor does it guarantee that another tool will answer the same way with your prompts: that's why the blog's third control is testing a second model with a real task.
Read the full context in If your AI tool changes tomorrow, what do you still own?
