The most useful thing I ever gave Claude wasn't a prompt. It was two years of my
By Andrew Bailiff · October 25, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
The most useful thing I ever gave Claude wasn't a prompt.
It was two years of my own weekly client email reports and meeting transcripts.
Every report I'd written. The data I chose to show, how I explained it, what I left out.
I had it read all of them and write down my style. What I lead with, how short I keep it, which metrics I always come back to.
Now my weekly report runs off that. It pulls last week's numbers from AdLabs through the MCP, drafts the email the way I'd write it, and I edit before anything goes out.
The prompt is short. The context behind it is several years. That's why it sounds like me and not like a template.
If you want to try it:
→ Pull a few months of reports you've already sent
→ Ask Claude what they have in common: structure, tone, the metrics you always mention
→ Have it write that down as a style file
→ Run your next report with that file attached, then fix what it gets wrong
One rule I keep: I read every one before a client sees it. What it builds for me usually has more detail than a client needs, so I trim it down to the points that matter.
Your old work is the best context you have.