Single words are tools. Recipes are tools in sequence — one word setting up the next. Here are six worth keeping on an index card.
For any purchase bigger than a toaster. A man shopping for a used truck first specifies: "trucks under $18,000, under 120,000 miles, able to tow 5,000 pounds." Then he quantifies: "estimate the next two years of likely repairs for each type." Then he ranks: "order them by total cost of owning, not sticker price." Three prompts, and a fog of listings became a decision with its homework already done — because each word narrowed, priced, and ordered what the previous word produced.
For any decision you can't undo cheaply. Before accepting a new job across the country, a woman steelmans the move: "make the strongest honest case for taking it." Then she flips: "disagree — make the strongest case that it's a mistake." Then she inverts: "list what would have to go wrong for me to regret this in a year." She may still move — but she'll move having met the best arguments on both sides and named her real risks, instead of the ones a brochure mentions.
For the project that lives in your head as one big dread. "Renovate the bathroom" gets decomposed into its separate jobs, each sequenced — plumbing before tile, tile before fixtures, and what's allowed to overlap — and finally budgeted: a fixed total, allocated job by job, with the splurge named and the savings named. The dread was never the work; it was the shapelessness. Three words gave the project a skeleton, a calendar, and a price.
For writing that matters. A best man drafts his toast in one prompt, then asks for a critique "the way a kind but honest friend would give it — where does it drag, where's the joke that only works on paper?" Then he iterates, round by round, changing one thing at a time: "keep the fishing story, cut the college story, make the ending land on the bride." The toast that results isn't the machine's or his alone — it's what survived several honest rounds, which is how most good writing has always been made.
For numbers someone hands you with confidence. A contractor quotes "$9,000" for a roof. You assume his scope out loud: "assuming that's tear-off and replacement, mid-grade shingles." You bracket it against the market: "what's the low-to-high range for this roof in my state?" Then you verify: "go through his line items and flag anything unusual." You haven't accused anyone of anything — you've simply done, in three prompts, what a careful person does before signing anything with a comma in the price.
For learning anything that arrives wrapped in jargon. A new diagnosis, a lease, a letter from a law firm: first summarize it — the shape of the thing in five sentences. Then translate the hard parts into plain language. Then exemplify: "show me one concrete case of what this means in practice." Shape, meaning, instance — by the third word, the document that frightened you has become a subject you can discuss, ask about, and decide about.
For finding a human being to hire. A homeowner needs a plumber and dreads the directory. She localizes first: "plumbers who actually serve my town, not the metro area." Then she filters the list hard: "licensed, answers their own phone, will give a written estimate — drop everyone else silently." Finally she ranks what survives: "by how fast they can come this week, then by review patterns about cleanup, not just stars." Three prompts turned a page of ads into two phone calls — and the criteria, not the advertising, did the choosing.
For the conversation you are dreading. A supervisor must tell a good employee his work has slipped. First, role: "you are a fair, experienced HR coach." Then simulate: "play my employee — proud, surprised, a little hurt — while I practice the opening." Afterward, critique: "review what I said the way that coach would: where did I get vague, where did I accidentally promise something?" The meeting, when it came, was the second time he had had it — and the first version, the bad one, had cost nothing.
For the claim everybody is sharing. A startling health claim is moving through a family group chat. First trace it: "where did this claim first come from — a study, a book, a television segment?" Then cite: "for each part of it, name the kind of source behind it." Then flag: "mark anything that got exaggerated as it traveled." The message he sent back to the chat was short and kind, because the homework had been done quietly and completely — the claim's birthplace was a magazine headline, its study was about rats, and two of its numbers had doubled in the retelling.
For making something with taste. A baker naming a new line of breads brainstorms thirty names without judging a single one. Then she varies the survivors on purpose: "give me each finalist in three directions — homier, funnier, more elegant." Finally she anchors: "judge them all against the name of the loaf that already sells best — match its warmth, beat its memorability." The machinery produced options at industrial speed; the anchor made sure her own hard-won taste picked the winner.
For the project measured in months. Restoring an old truck gets staged: engine, body, interior, each with a definition of done. Each stage gets timeboxed — "six weekends, no more, and tell me what 'done' sacrifices if the box holds." Then the whole plan is anticipated: "list what will try to stop this project — parts delays, money months, lost enthusiasm — and one defense for each." Big projects rarely die from the work. They die from the unlisted surprise in month three, which this recipe drags into the light in week one.
For two numbers that refuse to agree. A small shop's register total and bank deposit disagree by $212. She pinpoints first: "which day, which shift, which tender type does the gap live in?" Then she cross-checks that day's total a second way, from the receipts instead of the register. The routes disagree in a new place — which is progress — so she reconciles: "walk the likely causes of a gap this size, in order." Cause number two was a double-entered refund. Three words turned a vague suspicion of her staff into a bookkeeping event with a name, which is what it had been all along.
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Everything in this book, pre-assembled. Each template below is a complete prompt: copy it, fill in the [brackets], and send it as-is. The short note after each names the words doing the heavy lifting, so you can start taking the templates apart and rebuilding them for jobs nobody has templated yet.
"Plan my week of [DATES]. My fixed commitments are: [LIST THEM]. My goals are: [GOAL 1], [GOAL 2]. Budget my waking hours across work, family, errands, and rest — show the split. Sequence anything that depends on something else, and flag any day where the plan only works if nothing goes wrong."
Words at work: Budget allocates the fixed total of hours; Sequence respects the dependencies; Flag marks the fragile day before it breaks.
In use: "Plan my week of June 9–15. Fixed: work weekdays 9–5, dentist Tuesday at 2, kids' game Saturday at 10. Goals: finish the deck repair, call my mother twice. Budget my waking hours across work, family, errands, and rest — and flag any day that only works if nothing goes wrong." The flagged day came back Wednesday, which was carrying a delivery, a deadline, and the dentist's revenge — and it got fixed on paper, in advance, for free.
"Here is a bill from [COMPANY]: [PASTE IT]. Translate it into plain language, charge by charge. Itemize every fee, flag any charge that is unusual, new, or higher than typical, and end with the exact sentence I should use if I call to dispute the worst one."
Words at work: Translate removes the uniform from the jargon; Itemize makes the total countable; Flag aims your one phone call at the charge that deserves it.
In use: a water bill arrives at twice its usual size. The translation shows the usage charge is normal but a "service availability fee" appeared in March and doubled in May. The dispute sentence the template produced — calm, dated, specific — was read aloud word for word on the call, and the fee was credited before the hold music ended.
"I have a meeting with [WHO] about [TOPIC] on [DAY]. Anticipate the five hardest questions or objections they could raise. For each, draft a short, honest answer I could actually say out loud. End with the one question I should ask them."
Words at work: Anticipate rehearses tomorrow's pressure today; Draft turns worries into sentences; the closing question returns some of the steering wheel to you.
In use: a performance review with a manager known for curveballs. The anticipated questions included the one about the missed March deadline — the exact one asked, worded almost identically. The answer had been rehearsed at the kitchen table, and it sounded like honesty instead of panic because it was, by then, simply practiced.
"Teach me [TOPIC] from zero. Layer it: first a one-sentence version, then a one-paragraph version, then the full picture. After the full picture, quiz me with three questions, and exemplify the hardest idea with one everyday example."
Words at work: Layer stacks the depth so you can stop when satisfied; Exemplify anchors the abstraction; the quiz converts reading into remembering.
In use: a grandfather decides to finally understand the family trust his lawyer drafted. Layer one: "it's instructions for who handles things if you can't." Layer three, plus the quiz, exposed that he had misunderstood one term completely — cheaply, at his own table, instead of expensively, at a lawyer's hourly rate.
"Compare [ITEM A] and [ITEM B] for someone who [YOUR SITUATION]. Tabulate them: price, running cost per year, expected lifespan, warranty, and the known weak point of each. Then rank them by total cost of owning, and tell me what kind of buyer should choose the loser anyway."
Words at work: Tabulate lines the facts up where mismatches show; Rank forbids the tie; the final sentence honors the truth that the best buy depends on the buyer.
In use: two washing machines, $200 apart. The table showed the cheaper one cost more per year to run and carried the shorter warranty; the ranking by cost-of-owning flipped the sticker order. The losing machine's buyer, the answer noted, should be someone moving within two years — which is a renter, not this family.
"Here is my draft: [PASTE IT]. Critique it honestly — where it drags, where it confuses, what it should cut. Then let's iterate: round one, change only [THE ONE THING]. Keep everything I haven't named exactly as it is."
Words at work: Critique gets the truth before the rewrite; Iterate makes improvement compound; the last sentence is Constrain standing guard over your own words.
In use: a complaint letter to a contractor, written angry and rewritten necessary. The critique cut four sentences that felt wonderful and proved nothing. Round one changed only the opening — from accusation to chronology — and the letter that was sent got a callback, which the angry version had been risking for the pleasure of being angry.
"I'm deciding whether to [THE DECISION]. Steelman the case for doing it, then steelman the case against, both at full strength. Then invert it: list what would have to go wrong for me to regret this in a year. Grade how likely each regret is."
Words at work: Steelman on both sides forbids the comfortable caricature; Invert finds the failure paths; Grade keeps the fears sorted by likelihood instead of volume.
In use: a teacher weighs leaving for a job in another state. The steelmanned cases ran three paragraphs each and neither pulled a punch. The inversion list named four regrets; the grades put "missing my students" at likely, "the school collapses without me" at unlikely — and the decision, unchanged, became considerably easier to sleep inside.
"Explain [TOPIC] to a [AGE]-year-old. Simplify until she could explain it back to me correctly. Use one example from her world — [SCHOOL / PETS / A GAME SHE LOVES] — and no word you haven't defined in the same sentence. Keep it under [NUMBER] sentences."
Words at work: Simplify applies the honest comprehension test; Localize moves the example into her actual world; Limit keeps it shorter than her patience.
In use: "Explain thunder to a six-year-old who loves her dog." The answer used the dog startled by a dropped pan, defined "sound wave" as "the push the noise makes in the air," and stopped at five sentences. She explained it back perfectly, then went to comfort the dog, which had been the real assignment all along.
"Here is a long document: [PASTE OR ATTACH IT]. Summarize it in five sentences. Then list separately: anything that costs me money, anything that restricts what I can do, every deadline, and anything you had to interpret because the wording was unclear — flag that last group as interpretation, not fact."
Words at work: Summarize gives the shape; the separate lists stop compression from burying the biting clauses; Flag separates the document's words from the machine's guesses.
In use: a 40-page condo association rulebook. The summary fit in five sentences; the separate lists held the real estate — a $150 monthly special assessment, no rentals under twelve months, a deadline for a balcony inspection — and one flagged interpretation about guest parking that a phone call later confirmed the machine had read wrong. The flag, as usual, was the point.
"I need to negotiate [WHAT] with [WHO]. I want [YOUR GOAL]; I can honestly offer [WHAT YOU CAN GIVE]. Draft what I say: warm opening, the ask stated plainly, one reason that's true, and a gracious line for if they say no. Nothing pushy, nothing apologetic."
Words at work: Draft moves the hard sentences to a calm moment; Assume keeps the trade honest by stating both sides of it; tone words do the constraining that keeps it polite.
In use: a tenant asking a landlord to split the cost of a fence repair. The draft opened warm, asked plainly, offered the true reason — both properties gain — and closed with a gracious line for a no. The landlord said yes in two days, and later said the letter itself was half the reason.
"Teach me [TOPIC] like a patient tutor. Break it into chunks I can finish in [NUMBER] minutes each. After every chunk, stop and quiz me — one question at a time, wait for my answer, correct me kindly, and don't move on until I've got it. If I stall, exemplify the idea instead of repeating it."
Words at work: Chunk sizes the sittings; the quiz loop turns teaching into checking; Exemplify is the rescue move when explanation alone stops working.
In use: a father learning spreadsheet formulas from zero, in twenty-minute chunks after dinner. The quizzes caught a misunderstanding about cell references at chunk two — exactly where a video course would have kept sailing. Two weeks later he built the family budget sheet himself and explained it at the table, which is the only graduation this book recognizes.
"Something's wrong at home: [DESCRIBE THE PROBLEM AND WHEN IT STARTED]. Limit your answer to the three most likely causes, in order. For each cause, give me one safe check I can do myself today, and flag clearly anything that means 'stop and call a professional instead.'"
Words at work: Limit keeps the suspect list actionable; Cross-Check lives in the tests, one per cause; Flag draws the bright line between a homeowner's afternoon and a professional's job.
In use: a toilet that runs every twenty minutes at 3 a.m. The three causes came ordered — flapper, fill valve, chain — each with a safe check, and the flag sat beside the third: a cracked tank means stop. It was the flapper. Total cost: one part, one Saturday hour, and a full night's sleep, restored by a numbered list.
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