What are custom instructions and projects, and why set them up?

Custom instructions

Most assistants have a settings page where you write notes that apply to every conversation. The name varies: custom instructions, a profile, a system prompt, a workspace setting. Put in who you are, what the business does and who your customers are.

Then say how you write, and what never to say without a person, such as discounts, delivery dates or advice. Add what to do when it is unsure, which should be to ask you rather than guess. Write it once, and every conversation starts from there.

Projects and workspaces

A project, or workspace, is a place for one job. It holds the reference files for that job and the instructions that go with them. A quotes project might hold your standard terms, three past quotes with the customer names removed, and a note to draft in that layout and leave any price you have not given it as a marked blank.

A job ads project might hold your company blurb and two ads you liked. On business plans, a project can usually be shared with the team, so everyone gets the same behaviour. Features and names differ between products, so look for the general idea in yours.

Why it is worth ten minutes

It saves you re-explaining the business every time, and it makes the team's drafts sound like one business instead of six people's guesses. It also gives you a place to fix things: each time a draft goes wrong the same way, add a line. Much of the improvement a team sees over the first year comes from instructions getting sharper, not from anyone learning clever prompts.

Instructions guide the assistant, but they do not guarantee the result. It can still miss a rule or invent a detail, so you still read every draft before it goes out.

What to keep out

Leave out facts that change, such as prices, hours and staff names. They go stale in the instructions and nobody remembers they are there. Put them in a file with a date and an owner instead.

Leave out anything sensitive unless the plan's terms allow it: customer lists, staff records, anything under a confidentiality agreement. Everyone with access to a project can see its files, and instructions travel with every request, so write nothing you would mind a vendor's logs holding.

What to do this week

Write ten lines: who we are, how we write, what never to say, and what to do when unsure. Paste one good example of your own writing beneath them. Try it on three real tasks and add a line for each mistake. If you have a business plan, make one project for your most repeated job, share it, and name one person to review it monthly at first.