Speed Prompting: Make AI Prompting Faster with Custom Shortcuts

These days, many of us probably spend a significant amount of time interacting with AI models like GPT and others. We use them for work, personal tasks, and sometimes just for fun.

As you might have noticed, these AI models have their own strengths and weaknesses, almost like a unique "personality." Of course, this varies depending on the specific model, its size, and how it was trained, but there are always differences.

Over time, you might find yourself repeating the same instructions or phrases again and again in your chats, like:

• "Please use only the provided data sources, don't make up anything."
• "Please translate this into my native language [xyz]."
• "Do not use web search."
• "Do not comment, just output..."
• (from vibe coding space): "This file is too huge, make it more modular and split (for vibe coding)."
• "Do not use any tools."
• "Or use tool [xyz]."
• ...and much more.

If you use AI chatbots frequently, repeatedly typing these instructions can become quite repetitive and time-consuming.

Can We Make AI Prompting Easier?

There are tools and features designed to help manage prompts, like prompt libraries or "projects" in some models (like Claude and ChatGPT). These let you pre-configure prompts and data for specific tasks.

This can be super useful. But what if you don't have access to these features, or prefer not to switch between different setups?

There's a much simpler technique you can use right within the chat interface, often without needing special project features. It involves using custom shortcuts that you define yourself for recurring prompts.

How This Technique Works: Leveraging Custom Instructions

Most chatbots allow you to set up persistent instructions or preferences. These are injected into or considered for every new conversation you start. You can use this area to define your general preferences, things you want the AI to always keep in mind (like your preferred language), or topics to avoid.

In Claude, you can find this under 'Preferences':

ChatGPT offers a similar feature, often called 'Custom Instructions':

Create Your Own Shortcuts with Custom Codes

The Idea:

The idea is to use this personalization setting to create your own shortcuts, which I'll call "custom codes." These codes represent recurring prompts or pieces of text you type frequently.

Instead of copying and pasting from a note app or clipboard manager, you just type a short code like:

• #TRS to mean "Please translate this into my native language."
• #SUM to mean "Create a brief summary of max 300 words."

...or whatever tasks you do often.