The no that keeps the relationship
Lesson 2 of 6 · The Calendar
1 · Learn the move · RTO. Role · Task · Output
Three things in every prompt: who the AI is, what it is doing, and what the deliverable looks like. "You are the EA to a CEO, declining a vendor who has emailed three times, output an email under 120 words" changes every word it picks. Skip the role and you get a call-center voice. Skip the output spec and you get four paragraphs where two lines would do, which reads as softness and earns you a fourth email. A decline is a short job with a hard edge and a warm surface. Say all three and you get one.
Role: you are the executive assistant to [exec], the one who protects the calendar. Task: decline [request] without offering my executive's time, and give one alternative that costs them nothing to accept. Output: an email under 120 words, one apology maximum, no "circle back," no invented future date.
2 · Your turn. You write the prompt
Nate Sipes at Corvia Systems has asked three times, Aug 3, Aug 7, and yesterday, for thirty minutes with Marcus. Marcus keeps Tuesday and Thursday 8:00 to 10:00am as a focus block nobody touches, and those are the only open slots left this month. Write a prompt for a decline that does not burn a vendor you may want next year.
Remember: the AI sees only your prompt, not this page. If the situation isn't in your prompt, it doesn't exist.
Optional. These shape the output when you run your prompt below, not your score.