Build your own helper
Intermediate 10 · 2 minutes 13 seconds · Free to learn · Words printed on screen · Watch above, then try the exercise below.
What you'll learn
- What standing instructions are and where they live
- Two helpers for two worlds — home and hall
- The playbook — saving the questions that worked
- Tending the brief, and taking it with you between tools
Key points
Every lesson in this series was a brief typed fresh. A helper is those briefs saved once: standing instructions that hold who you are, how you like answers, and what you are working on — the helper's memory of you. Maggie keeps two: a home helper that knows the house, the garden, and how she writes, and a hall helper with the rota, the tone, and the Saturday problem. Inside each helper's space sits a playbook — the questions that worked, saved where the helper can use them — and the documents themselves, so answers start from the hall's own tariff letter and rota rules, not from the world's general knowledge. The result: beginner questions, intermediate answers, because the brief did the work.
The discipline matters as much as the setup. The brief carries context, never credentials — no passwords, no account numbers, nothing you would not read aloud. Helpers need tending: a ten-minute seasonal reread, pruning what changed, keeps the brief true. And the brief is a document, so if you change tools it travels with you; nothing you taught it is trapped. The caution to end on: a helper's better answers make its rare inventions more believable too — the checking habits are not beginner scaffolding. They are the craft. Camp rule: Teach it once, benefit every day.
Try it
- Write your one-page standing brief — full picture, no secrets.
- Save it as your helper's instructions.
- Ask one ordinary question through it and compare.
The words in this video
Prefer to read, or want to follow along while you watch? Here is everything the narrator says in this lesson, word for word.
Welcome back. I am Maggie. Last lesson of the Intermediate series — and the one that makes all the others permanent. We build your own helper. Everything in this series was a brief you typed fresh — the full picture, the standing Monday shape. A helper is those briefs, saved once, working every day. Most AI tools have a place for standing instructions. Who you are, how you like answers, what you are working on. That is the helper's memory of you.
Mine has two. A home helper that knows the house, the garden, and how I write — and the hall helper, with the rota, the tone, and the Saturday problem. Writing the standing brief is lesson one, done once, properly. The full picture — people, places, projects — plus how I like things. Plain words, no secrets. No secrets bears repeating. The brief carries context, never credentials. No passwords, no account numbers, nothing you would not read aloud in the hall.
Then the playbook. Inside the helper's space I keep the words that worked — my best questions from every lesson in this series, saved where the helper can use them. The document habit comes along too. The hall helper holds the tariff letter, the rota rules, the insurance summary — so its answers start from our documents, not the world's. Watch what changes. I ask about Saturday and it already knows the hall, the double-booking habit, and my firm-but-friendly. Beginner questions, intermediate answers — because the brief did the work.
Helpers need tending. Once a season I reread the brief like a stranger — the rota changed, a project ended. Ten minutes of pruning keeps it true. And helpers are per-tool, mostly. If you change tools, your brief is a document — take it with you. Nothing you taught it should be trapped. The caution, to end the series where we began. A helper knows your context, which makes its answers better — and its rare inventions more believable. The checking habits are not beginner scaffolding. They are the craft.
Try it, as your graduation. Write your standing brief — one page, the full picture, no secrets — and ask one ordinary question through it. Feel the difference. Camp rule — teach it once, benefit every day. That is the Intermediate series. The camp is yours now — keep building, and I will see you out there.