Before and after, with PAST
The same task, rebuilt with Purpose, Audience, Scope, and Tone — and why each change makes the output more reliable.
1. The status email
“Draft a weekly status email from my project notes.”
- Task
- Draft a weekly stakeholder update from project notes.
- Purpose
- Summarize progress, blockers, and next steps clearly.
- Audience
- Project sponsors and team leads who need a fast status read.
- Scope
- Use this week’s notes only; exclude confidential detail; highlight risks and deadlines.
- Tone
- Professional, concise, calm, and accountable.
What changed: The vague version leaves the model to guess what “status” means, who reads it, and how long it should be. The PAST version pins the outcome, names the readers, fences the source material, and sets the register — so the output arrives usable instead of generic.
2. The survey analysis
“Analyse this survey feedback.”
- Task
- Identify the top three themes in this quarter’s customer survey responses.
- Purpose
- Give the product team a defensible shortlist of what to fix next.
- Audience
- Product managers who will act on the findings, and a director who will challenge them.
- Scope
- Only the free-text responses; quote two verbatim examples per theme; flag sample-size caveats; exclude feature requests already on the roadmap.
- Tone
- Neutral and evidence-led — claims sized to the data.
What changed: “Analyse” is not an outcome. The rebuilt prompt names the deliverable (three themes), the decision it feeds, the evidence rules, and the scepticism it must survive.
3. The content calendar
“Plan a content calendar for my product launch.”
- Task
- Plan a 30-day content calendar for the launch of a prompt-building tool.
- Purpose
- Build awareness before launch day and momentum in the fortnight after.
- Audience
- Practitioners on LinkedIn and a smaller newsletter list — busy people who distrust hype.
- Scope
- Three posts a week plus one newsletter; each entry needs a working title, format, and call to action; nothing that requires video production.
- Tone
- Useful first, promotional second — show the thinking, not the countdown.
What changed: The vague version produces a generic grid of “engaging content ideas.” The PAST version constrains cadence, channels, deliverable fields, and production reality, and gives the model a stance to write from.
4. The lesson plan
“Make a lesson plan about AI for my class.”
- Task
- Design a 60-minute introductory lesson on how AI chatbots actually work.
- Purpose
- Leave students able to explain, in their own words, why the same question can get different answers.
- Audience
- Year 8 students with no technical background, in mixed-ability groups of four.
- Scope
- One hands-on activity with no devices required, one class discussion, one exit-ticket question; avoid maths notation entirely.
- Tone
- Curious and concrete — analogies over definitions.
What changed: The rebuilt version knows what understanding looks like at the end of the hour, who is in the room, and what the classroom can physically support. That is the difference between a worksheet and a lesson.
Build your prompt with PAST
Ready to rebuild your own task with Purpose, Audience, Scope, and Tone?