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AI Quick Tips 17: Use multi-step prompts for complex tasks

AI Quick Tips

Consider multi-step prompts if you have a series of questions, tasks that require the output of previous tasks, problems that cannot be solved with a single response, etc. 


Multi-steps prompts are exactly what they sound like - prompts with more than one (“multi”) step.


There are a few ways to approach multi-step prompting

  1. List all of the steps in a single prompt - i.e. 

Please complete {task} by going through the following steps

Step 1 - {Do something}
Step 2 - {Do something else}
Step 3 - {Use the output from step 2 and do a 3rd thing}
Step 4 - Etc.
Produce output in {format}


*A potential issue with this approach is that it will take too much time and/or processing power to do at once.  If this happens the results might be fragmented or the task might not complete at all.

  1. Complete the steps with follow-up prompting

Input: Please complete {task 1}
Output: {output 1}


Input: Use {output 1} to complete {task 2}
Output: {output 2}


Input: Use {output 2} to complete {task 3}
Output: {output 3}

Etc.


* A potential issue with this approach is that you will run out of follow-up prompts.  Different tools allow different numbers of follow-ups.  Usually creating an account or upgrading to a paid plan will give you more follow-up opportunities


There are other ways to do it but that should be enough to get you started.

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