You open one article to answer a question. An hour later you have 23 tabs open, three half-read PDFs, and no answer.
The problem is not the research. It is that nobody told the AI what a finished answer looks like. So it keeps handing you more reading instead of a decision.
Here is the fix I use: a copy-paste research brief. You give ChatGPT the question, the boundaries, and the exact shape of the answer you want. It does the digging. You get one page back.
The template
Copy this into ChatGPT, fill in the brackets, and hit send:
You are my research assistant. I need a brief, not a pile of links.
QUESTION: [the one question you need answered]
RULES:
1. Use sources from the last 12 months unless I say otherwise.
2. Skip anything behind a paywall. If you cannot read it, do not cite it.
3. If two sources disagree, say so and tell me which one is stronger and why.
GIVE ME BACK:
- The answer in 3 sentences or less.
- 3 key facts, each with its source.
- 1 thing most people get wrong about this.
- What I should do next, in one sentence.
- Keep the whole brief under 300 words.
That last line matters most. Without a word limit, the AI writes a report. With one, it writes a brief.
Why this works
Most people paste a question and accept whatever comes back. The template does three things differently:
It sets the shape first. "Answer in 3 sentences" forces the AI to decide what matters instead of dumping everything it found.
It names the traps. "Skip paywalled sources" and "flag disagreements" close the two holes that make AI research unreliable: sources it never actually read, and confident answers built on one shaky page.
It ends with an action. Research that does not end in a next step is just reading. One sentence of "do this next" turns a brief into progress.
A real example
Last week I needed to pick a scheduling tool for a small shop. Old way: 40 minutes of tabs, two comparison articles, still undecided. Brief way: I pasted the template with the question "which scheduling tool fits a 3-person shop that books by phone," and got back a 200-word brief with three options, one disagreement flagged (two review sites ranked the same tool opposite ways), and a next step: try the free tier of the one that handled phone bookings.
Total time: 6 minutes, including reading the brief.
Make it yours
Save the template somewhere you will actually find it again. A notes app, a pinned message to yourself, anywhere. Then change one line for your work: swap "last 12 months" for whatever freshness your field needs, or add "prices in USD only" if you shop with it.
The template is the skill. The AI is just the intern running it.
Want more like this?
I build small copy-paste skills like this one for ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok. Two free samples live here: https://github.com/lilnickyai/claude-code-skills-samples
The full set, including research briefs, email drafting, meeting notes, and decision templates, is on the store: https://littlenova5.gumroad.com
And if you want one free skill in your inbox every Tuesday, sign up here: https://lil-nicky-ai.kit.com/d26c1ccfd6
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