⏳ Rewriting every time is a waste — the calculation no one does
Think about the past month: how many times did you ask (or would you ask) AI for a summary, an email, or an explanation? If the answer is “several,” every time you improvised the request from scratch, you paid twice: in time and in inconsistent quality.
📊 The cost of improvising
- 5 similar requests/week × 4 min improvising each = ~80 min/month rewriting what’s already been written
- Quality in the lottery: good day = good prompt; busy day = weak prompt = weak answer
- Zero learning: the brilliant tweak you made Tuesday is lost by Wednesday — no one wrote it down
🔺 The seed of layer 4
Keep this idea in mind: what works can't be lost — it should become a template. In this module, you apply this to prompts. In Track 4 (Making the Most of It), you'll apply the same principle to entire processes. The pyramid is built this way: each layer lays the groundwork for the next.
Invisible cost
~80 min/month rewriting the same request
Consistency
A good template = consistent quality, no lottery
Prompt = asset
A good prompt is worth money: treat it as an asset
Bridge to T4
What works becomes a model—the pyramid principle
🧩 Anatomy of a template — variables [IN BRACKETS]
A template is a strong prompt where the parts that change became variables. The skeleton (role, format, rules) stays fixed; only the core ([TEMA], [PÚBLICO], [TOM]) changes with each use. See the transformation:
BEFORE — single-use prompt (the difficult email V4 from module 1.1)
AFTER — template "resposta-cliente-insatisfeito-v1" (works for ANY complaint)
Write a reply to a customer who complained about: [PROBLEM].
Tone: human and direct, without legalese. Own the mistake without groveling.
Offer: [SOLUTION A] or [SOLUTION B], whichever they prefer.
Format: maximum 120 words, 3 paragraphs (acknowledge, resolve, win back).
End with a personal sentence, not with "Sincerely".
💡 Practical Tip
The rule for deciding what becomes a variable: if it changed in the last 3 uses, it's variable; if it didn't, it's the skeleton. Don’t overdo it—a template with 12 brackets is a form, not a shortcut. Ideally: 2 to 4 variables.
📚 The 10 ready-to-use templates — copy today, use forever
Your starter kit. Each one follows the 5 parts of module 1.1, with ready-to-use variables. Copy them all to your place for storing (topic 4) — even the ones that don’t seem useful today.
1 · executive summary
2 · professional-email
3 · explain-simply
4 · guided-brainstorming
5 · proofread-text
6 · compare-decide
7 · lesson-plan (👩🏫 a favorite among teachers)
8 · business-proposal (💼 a favorite among salespeople and self-employed professionals)
9 · hook-post (🎨 a favorite among creators)
10 · analyze-document (⚖️📊 a favorite among lawyers and managers)
⚠️ Attention — Trail 3 preview
In template 10, the warning "no sensitive data!" not decorative: never paste contracts with real names, customer data, or confidential information. Replace them with [NAME], [COMPANY], [VALUE]. Track 3 devotes an entire topic to this — for now, remember the golden rule: "would you post this in a public group?"
🗄️ Where to save things — the best place is the one you ALREADY open
A library no one opens is a dead library. Choosing where it goes isn’t a technical decision — it’s behavioral: the best place is the one that's already part of your day.
📄 Single document (Google Docs/Word)
One document, one heading per template, search with Ctrl+F.
For whom: most people. Simple, searchable, shareable. Start here.
📝 Notes app (Notion/Obsidian/Keep)
One note per template, tags by category.
For whom: already lives in a notes app. Don’t adopt a new app JUST for this.
📊 Spreadsheet
Columns: name, template, when to use, version.
For whom: spreadsheet users and teams (naturally becomes a shared foundation).
💡 Practical Tip
Do it NOW, not later: create the doc, paste in the 10 templates from this module + the 3 you rewrote in module 1.1. Ready: you have a library of 13 prompts — more than 95% of AI users have. Time: 5 minutes.
🏷️ Naming and versioning — you don't find a “good prompt”; you find “email-cliente-bravo-v2”
With 5 prompts, you remember them by heart. With 30, only the name saves you. The convention is simple: what-it-does + situation + version.
✗ Names that get lost
- ✗"good prompt"
- ✗"test 3 final FINAL"
- ✗"the one that worked"
- ✗"new prompt (2)"
✓ Names you can find
- ✓email-cliente-bravo-v2
- ✓resumo-reuniao-v1
- ✓post-instagram-gancho-v3 ⭐champion
- ✓proposta-consultoria-v1
🔍 The 3 versioning rules
- Did it improve? New version (v1 → v2) — don’t overwrite it: v1 is your history and your backup plan.
- Mark the champion — a ⭐ on what’s in use. You always know which one to grab when you’re in a hurry.
- Note in one line why — “v2: I asked for 3 hooks at the end, and it improved a lot.” This 10-second habit is the beginnings of Utilization Engineering (T4).
⚡ Latecomer shortcut — the 3 that solve 80%
No time or energy for 10 templates? No problem. Three of them cover 80% of real-world use for beginners — because summarizing, writing messages, and understanding new things are what everyone does every week.
🥇 executive-summary
Any long text—a report, article, or huge email—becomes 5 actionable bullets.
🥈 professional-email
Every difficult message to write — a payment reminder, a request, a delicate response — in 1 minute.
🥉 explain-simply
Anything that intimidates you, explained at your level. Your personal tutor, available 24/7.
⚡ The anti-perfectionism rule
3 templates used are worth more than 30 saved. Save the 3 above on your phone (notes app), use them for a week, and only then come back to the other 7. Perfectionism slows you down more than ignorance—and you already know that a delay here turns into an advantage.
💼 In your profession — the template that pays off the most
Reskilling happens when AI solves the YOUR problem. Identify your profile and start with the highest-return template — then adapt the others.
Teacher → lesson plan
Template 7 with [PERFIL DA TURMA] filled in with real details (“busy 7th-grade class, 35 students, class after recess”) generates plans that feel like they were made by someone who knows your classroom. Prep time is cut in half.
Lawyer → analyze-document
Template 10 as a first pass on contracts and legal filings: issues to watch for, ordered by severity, before your close read. ALWAYS with anonymized data—[PARTE A], [VALOR], [DATA].
Seller → professional email (follow-up variation)
Duplicate template 2 as "followup-proposta-v1": [DESTINATÁRIO]=lead, [OBJETIVO]=reconnect without seeming pushy. The follow-up you keep putting off because you don’t know how to write it is ready in 40 seconds.
Manager → executive summary
Template 1 for meeting minutes, reports, and endless threads—with the closing line “decision this text calls for.” You go into every meeting knowing what’s at stake.
Creator / Freelancer → post-with-hook
Template 9 with the Pain→Explanation→Example→Benefit→CTA structure. In Learning Path 4, you’ll discover that this structure came from reverse-engineering top-performing posts—and learn how to extract YOURS.
🔺 You’ve completed the foundation of the pyramid
Look at what you have now: you understand the tool (1.0), write prompts with the 5 parts (1.1), and have a named, versioned library (1.2). "A prompt is a question" — and you learned how to ask. In Track 2, the question gets a destination: what are you asking for this for?
📚 Module Summary
📦 Module deliverable (and learning path deliverable):
Your personal prompt library: doc created, 10 templates pasted in + your 3 from module 1.1, all named according to the convention, with ⭐ on your favorite. This is the 1st of the 6 course artifacts — keep it safe: it grows in the next tracks.
Next Track:
Track 2 — Intent Engineering: the perfect post that sold nothing (the AI got the task right and the target wrong)