I didn’t start out trying to simplify prompts. I just noticed that most of mine were getting longer, not better. After writing over 1,000 prompts and spending a year building AI tools, I realized that I was overthinking most of them.
That’s when I landed on a simple pattern that gets me 90% of the way: Role + Task (+ Constraints). I use it for daily work and only escalate when the problem actually earns the complexity.
Before this, I have frozen at my keyboard more times than I care to admit. Whenever I started a new prompt, I started overthinking the tone, persona, constraints, edge cases and everything else that felt important.
The outcome: paralysis.
After several minutes, I had a vague prompt and a sense of time wasted. More often than not, I ended up using a vague prompt that equally resulted in time wasted
After a whole year of working with AI tools and writing prompts daily, I learned a not-so-fun and liberating lesson: the majority of that complexity is just noise.
For day-to-day tasks such as; emails, debugging, summaries you don’t need the holy grail of prompts that involves 2 pages of personas, dos and don't, focus and constraints. You need only two things, and they both fit on one line.
The single framework that always helps me.
I call it Role-Task (with constraints if needed).
You are a [role]. You have to [task]. [Optional: constraint].
Behind this simple prompt lies a simple truth. Roles statistically steer the model’s language and priorities, influencing how the model thinks; a clear task gives a concrete verb and success criterion; and constraints are for when format, length, or audience actually matter. Together they give the model the right signals without overwhelming it.
How I discovered it
I needed a rewrite of a simple email, nothing strategic or sensitive. But even though I was aware of my actions, I ended up doing the same thing I did before: over-specifying the tone, audience, structure and edge cases. The response I got was actually longer than my original.
I soon realized this was complete madness. There I was using these prompt setups that looked like they belonged in a research paper for a trivial email. Frustration led me to try something embarrassingly simple.
Your role is an executive assistant. Rewrite this email to be clearer and more concise.
It turned out to be just what I wanted.
That one line I used was better than the page long instructions I had been writing. And it worked consistently. It was this point I stopped over-engineering and focused on the fact that simplicity works for simple tasks.
How I actually use this
Examples prompts using this framework includes:
You are a patient teacher. Explain gradient descent to me as if I just learned calculus.
Make this email half the length without losing the point. You are a concise editor.
You are a marketer with a creative streak. Write five messages to launch a product on Twitter. Make each less than 280 characters.
Notice how short the roles are. In fact, the most important thing in this entire article is that role descriptions should use simple titles like “senior developer”, instead of stating “a senior software engineer with 15 years of fintech, distributed systems and microservice experience”.
Adding modifiers such as years of experience will not usually make a meaningful difference and might instead make the response worse. Overloading the model with pseudo-CV details means you are now heading down the road of over-engineering and really diluting your response.
What actually works is adding behaviors to the chosen role as seen below.
Assume you are a concise editor who shortens lengthy text while preserving all meaning and tone
In addition to the above, when picking a role, ensure it is a singular role as opposing or stacked roles cancel each other out.
- A teacher explains patiently.
- A comedian adds flair.
When you ask the model to be all of them at once, it ends up being none of them well. Instead, pick one primary role. If you need another perspective, run a second prompt
The right time to include constraints (and when to avoid).
Only add constraints when you care about format, length, or audience.
- Looking for a table? “Say as a table.”
- Would you like a specific length? "In a hundred words or less"
- Looking for a targeted audience? "for the busy exec" or "for junior devs".
- Specific style? "avoid jargon"
If you don’t specify anything, you will receive the default of the model: clear, medium length and useful. But sometimes that’s enough.
Where Role-Task fizzles
As with all frameworks, it tends to fizzle out at some point. It is not a magical fix-all framework. Sometimes, it tends to malfunction. When it does, I escalate to more advanced prompt engineering frameworks (which will be covered in other articles)
My Escalation Ladder
Level 1: Role-Task (default)
Good for emails, rewrites, summaries, explanations.Level 2: Role-Task + Constraints
Still simple, just more control.Level 3: Few-Shot Prompting
Used when output must match a specific format or voice.
Frameworks: Few-Shot / Example-Based Prompting
Example: show 2–3 examples, then ask for another.Level 4: Chain-of-Thought / Decomposition
Used for reasoning-heavy problems.
Frameworks: Chain-of-Thought (CoT), Step-by-Step Reasoning
Example: “First identify constraints. Then propose options. Then recommend.”Level 5: Structured / Defensive Prompting
Used in production systems.
Frameworks: System Prompts, Guardrails, Output Validation
This is where input sanitization and schema enforcement live.
Most of my day-to-day prompts never go past Level 2.
The actual takeaway
You don’t need to master prompt engineering to be productive. You need a simple pattern you will actually use. Role–Task is mine. So try to start simple. Escalate deliberately. Most prompts never deserve more than two lines.
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