Ten Prompts That Do a Real Job

The newsletter. The reply to the parent who wasn’t happy. The policy you’ve never written down. The bit of the website you’ve been meaning to fix since March.

Nobody else is writing any of that. You are, usually after you’ve taught four classes and done the registers.

That’s the job these prompts are for. Not replacing anybody. Just taking some of it off you.

And to be clear, because plenty of what’s written about AI says otherwise: this isn’t about getting rid of people. I have an Ops Manager, and two Content Creators. I have fourteen teachers. Nobody’s job got smaller because I started using Claude and I’d never suggest yours should either. What got smaller was the pile of things only I could do, on my own, at night.

Every prompt here works on the free plan. Tap the copy button on any of them, then change the bits in square brackets.

Not used it before? Go to claude.ai in any browser, sign up, and you’ll see a box at the bottom of the screen. That’s where the prompt goes. Paste, press enter, and read what comes back. If you’d like that explained a bit more slowly, start with What Is Claude? and come back.

And none of them need a name, or a photograph. Nowhere do you tell it who a child is, and nowhere do you upload a picture of one. The people stay out, the problem can come in.

Pick whichever hat is annoying you most today. Except the first one. Do that one now.

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Start with this one

Before anything else, paste this in and see what comes back.

What do you know about my business [name]?

Why it’s first: Claude has been quietly building up a picture of you as you’ve chatted and almost nobody has ever asked it what’s in there. If you’ve used it a few times you’ll get something that surprises you. If you’re brand new you’ll get “not much yet”, which is a perfectly good answer and tells you where you’re starting from.

Best trick: whatever it says, correct it. “Actually I run a swim school, not a dance school” or “I write to parents, not businesses.” It keeps that, and everything after this gets better.

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Customer service

You are the customer service department. There isn’t one.

The reply you’re dreading

A parent isn't happy about [the thing]. She's not being unreasonable, but I can't change it. I need to reply warmly, acknowledge it properly before I explain anything, and offer [the alternative] as an option. Sound like me talking to her at pick up, not a company. Short. No "we apologise for any inconvenience".

Best trick: tell it she’s not being unreasonable. It changes everything that comes back, because it stops it writing you a defence.

The back to class email

Write the email that goes out to parents before we start back. I run [type of business] with about [number] families, mostly parents of [age range]. It needs to cover [dates], [any changes], and [the one thing you always have to remind them about]. Warm and a bit excited, three or four short paragraphs, not corporate. Don't say "we hope you've had a lovely summer", everyone says that.

Best trick: the “don’t say” instruction is the most useful half. Name the phrase you’re sick of and it’ll find you a better one.

The voice note

Record yourself talking for two minutes, then paste this:

That's me thinking out loud. Turn it into a short, warm email to a parent. Keep my actual points and my tone, lose the rambling, and don't add anything I didn't say.

Best trick: this is the one I use most, because talking is faster than typing and you’re better at it than you think. Do it in the car after class while it’s still fresh.

The waiting list

A space has come up in [class] and I want to offer it to the family at the top of the waiting list. Friendly, genuinely pleased, and clear about what happens next and by when. Short enough to read on a phone.

Best trick: ask for two versions, one for a family who’s waited months and one for someone who joined last week. Different tone, no extra effort.

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Social media manager

The newsletter you keep putting off

Write this term's newsletter for parents at [type of business]. It needs to cover [three or four things]. Warm, chatty, short paragraphs, the way I'd talk to one parent rather than announcing things to a room. No exclamation marks everywhere. Give me a version I can edit rather than something finished.

Best trick: paste last term’s newsletter in first, with any children’s names taken out, and say “match this tone”. You’ll get something that sounds like you instead of like a newsletter.

A week of posts, from things you’ve already done

I run [type of business]. Here are things that happened this week: [list them, however rough]. Turn them into [number] short social posts for parents and local families. Warm, real, no hype. For each one, tell me what I should go and film or photograph to go with it.

Best trick: work from what actually happened rather than asking for ideas. Your week is more interesting than anything it would invent.

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Your team

The awkward conversation

One of my teachers [the situation]. I've already spoken to them once. I need to raise it again, firmly but without it becoming a big thing. Help me work out what to say. Give me the structure and the difficult sentence, not a script.

Best trick: ask for the difficult sentence, not the whole script. You know how to have the conversation. It’s one line you’re stuck on.

On names: first names are fine here if it helps, because your team are adults you employ. No surnames, no contact details, nothing about anybody’s personal circumstances. And never for a family.

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Policies and paperwork

The thing you’ve never written down

I need a first draft of a written [policy or procedure] for my [type of business]. Here's what we actually do: [describe it in your own words, however messy]. Turn that into something clear enough to hand a new teacher. Plain English, no legal language, and tell me what I've left out.

Best trick: “tell me what I’ve left out” is the whole value. It’ll find the gap you’ve been working around for three years.

Please read this bit. Use this to get a first draft out of your head and onto a page, and nothing more than that. Anything with legal weight gets checked by someone qualified. Contracts, employment terms, your safeguarding policy, anything you’d be held to. A draft you can hand to a professional is a genuinely useful thing and it’ll save you money. A draft you file and rely on is a risk you don’t need.

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Business coach

Nobody’s paying for one of these, and this is the closest thing most of us will get.

Is this class worth keeping?

I've got a class running with [number] children, at [price] each, in a hall costing [amount], with one teacher paid [amount] for the session. Term is [number] weeks. Work out where I actually am on it, tell me what I'm not accounting for, and give me the honest answer on whether it's worth running.

Best trick: “tell me what I’m not accounting for” catches the costs you forget. Insurance, your own time, the drive there.

And to be clear: this is for thinking, not for your accounts. It doesn’t replace your accountant and it isn’t a set of books.

Before you dive in

I'm about to [the thing]. I move fast and I get excited about a new idea before I've thought it through. Catastrophise this for me. Tell me everything that could go wrong, what it would cost me, and what I'd wish I'd thought about beforehand. Don't soften it.

Best trick, and this is the whole thing: tell it how you work, not just what you’re planning. “I move fast and I get excited about a new idea” changes the answer completely, because now it knows what to warn you about.

I have ideas constantly. Eleven at night, three in the morning, whenever they decide to turn up. And I get so excited about the new one that I stop seeing the one already in front of me. I don’t think that’s a flaw, it’s probably where every good idea in my business has come from, it just needs something to push against. So I’ve told Claude that, and now when I’ve had one of my ideas I ask it to catastrophise before I do anything about it. It doesn’t put a dampener on it. It just slows me down enough to work out what I’m actually trying to achieve.

“Don’t soften it” matters. Left alone it will agree with you far too readily, so you have to ask for the pushback.

The one I use most, and it isn’t a task

Here's what I'm dealing with at the moment: [describe it]. What am I not thinking about?

Best trick: there isn’t one. That’s the whole prompt. Running as a small provider is lonely and there’s nobody around at nine at night to ask. It’s very good at this, and it’ll tell you things you’d rather it didn’t.

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Two more, and these aren’t work at all

I nearly left these out and then thought no, because you’re a person as well as a business, and the summer holidays are the only weeks you get.

A day out, or the whole holiday

Plan me [a day out in / number of days in] [place] for [who's going, ages]. Our budget is [amount]. We [hate rushing / want it packed]. We love [food, beaches, history, whatever]. Give me a plan with times that's actually doable with children that age, and the honest bit: what's overrated and what's worth booking ahead.

Best trick: tell it your real pace. “We hate rushing with two under five” gets a completely different and much better day out of it.

Works the same for a Saturday as it does for a fortnight.

The week’s meals

Plan a week of dinners for [who you're feeding, ages]. I teach on [which evenings] so those nights need to be [twenty minutes / already made]. We won't eat [list it]. Use up [what's in the fridge] first. Give me a shopping list grouped by aisle.

Best trick: tell it which nights you’re teaching. That one detail is the difference between a meal plan you follow and one you abandon on Tuesday.

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Three things that make any of these better

Tell it who you are. “I run a swim school with 200 families” changes the answer more than any clever wording. Most bad results come from a prompt with no context in it, not one with the wrong words in it.

Tell it the tone. “Warm, like I’m talking to one person” beats three paragraphs of instruction.

Never accept the first draft. It’ll be competent and slightly characterless. Say “too formal”, or “half that length”, or “that middle bit doesn’t sound like me”. It’s a conversation, not a vending machine.

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And the thing these don’t do

Each of these does one job, once. You paste your business in every single time.

If you find yourself doing that on repeat, that’s the point where a Project starts making sense, because a Project holds all of it for you and you stop repeating yourself. That’s a different thing, and it’s explained in the four jobs guide.

Start here though. A handful of prompts and a free account will get you further than most people in this sector have got.

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August 2026 edition. I look at these pages every quarter and update them when something moves.

More free guides at www.katemarkham.ai/resources.

Questions? I’m at hello@katemarkham.ai, always happy to help.