How to get AI to teach you: one step at a time
The most common thing people say to me after trying AI for the first time is some version of: “I tried it but I couldn’t quite get it to do what I wanted.”
That feeling is completely normal. Usually it just means you haven’t yet found the right way to ask. The good news is that AI itself can help you with that, if you know what to say.
Ask AI to teach you how to talk to it
It might sound odd to ask AI how to ask it things. It works well. If you’d like a different result, just say so. Try typing something like:
“I don’t think I’m asking this in the right way. Can you help me ask for what I want more clearly?”
You could also simply say: “I’m a complete beginner. Can you help me understand how to get what I’m looking for?”
AI is good at this. It will ask you questions, suggest clearer ways to phrase things and adjust the whole conversation to your level. AI will happily help you find the right words as you go.
One step at a time, every time
This is the single most useful habit I’ve developed with AI and I still use it today. Whenever something feels complicated or unfamiliar, I ask AI to go one step at a time.
One step. Then wait.
You can say: “Can you give me just the first step and then wait until I tell you I’m ready before moving on?”
AI will do exactly that, waiting patiently and moving on only when you say so. Take five minutes over step one if you need to. Zoom through steps two and three when they seem straightforward. The pace is entirely yours.
A page of instructions can feel like a lot. The same instructions broken into one step at a time feel perfectly manageable and they usually turn out to be much simpler than you expected.
Let me show you how this looks in practice
Here is a real example from my own experience. I wanted to create an image using ChatGPT, a picture of what someone might look like dressed in clothing from around 1820, so I could plan what to wear to a fancy dress party with a 200-year-old theme. An exciting idea but I had no idea how to describe it well enough to get the image I was imagining.
So I asked AI to help me. I typed something like:
“I want to create an image in ChatGPT of what a person would look like dressed in clothing from around 1820. I’m not sure how to describe it well. Can you ask me a few questions, one at a time and then help me put together a good description?”
AI asked me things like: was it a man or a woman? What sort of occasion were they dressed for? What colours did I have in mind? Each question helped me think and each answer made the description sharper. By the end, I had a clear, detailed prompt that I could take straight to ChatGPT and the image it produced was exactly what I needed to plan my outfit.
The phrases worth keeping
Keep these somewhere handy. They work in almost any situation where you’d like AI to try a different approach:
“I’m a complete beginner. Can you help me ask for this in a better way?”
“Please give me just the first step, then wait for me to say I’m ready.”
“I’m not getting the result I want. Can you help me figure out why and try again?”
“Ask me one question at a time so you understand what I’m looking for.”
These four phrases have changed the experience of AI for a lot of people I’ve worked with. They put you in control of the pace and the process, which is exactly where you should be.
If you’d like a hand putting your request into words before you start, I made a free Build a Great AI Prompt tool. Answer a few simple questions and it writes a well-worded prompt for you, ready to copy and use.
One more habit worth keeping: for anything you’ll act on, such as a price, a date or your health or money, give the answer the same quick check you’d give a Google search. That’s just being thorough.
You set the level
The point I always come back to is this: AI is there to work at your level, whatever that is right now.
If something feels like too much, say so. If you want it explained differently, say so. If you want to start over from the beginning, say so. The whole conversation bends to fit you.
Where to go from here
That’s the beginner path done. From here, pick whatever suits your life. My blog page has posts on letters, health, holidays, hobbies, money and much more, each one written so you can dive straight in.
A note on dates. Everything here was checked when it was written and I go back over my posts regularly to keep them up to date. Apps, prices and rules do change, so for anything important a quick look at the official source is worth it.
Want to go further?
Kevin’s book, AI For Your Life, goes into all of this in much more detail. It is written in plain English, full of practical examples and designed for people who want to get useful things done with AI. Available on Amazon.
If you’d prefer to work through it with someone alongside you, Kevin also offers one-to-one sessions where you can go at your own pace, ask anything you like and get hands-on with whatever you want to try. Get in touch to find out more.
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