I work in the OR. I study. I build in every gap… OR breaks, the car, the couch with my pups. Over 7,700 prompts in, here’s what saves me the most time. Ten habits, two parts. Here come the first five.
1. QA it before you show me
On 05/26 Claude handed me an image with a giant glowing cup. It looked pasted on. So I wrote the rule: “Visually QA it yourself before sending it to me.”
Now it’s a standing rule. Test it, stress it, prove it works. Then show me. I’m not the first-pass QA anymore, and I stopped losing nights to fix-it loops.
2. Go big or go home
Claude used to hand me the cheap option. Smaller scope, less work, safer. I don’t want safe. I want the best.
So rule 5 starts like this: “I Am a Beautiful, Brilliant, Bold Supercomputer.” Propose the biggest, boldest design. No talk about how long it’ll take. The only hedge allowed is security. Hit a wall? Dig in like an analyst and come back with options and a pick… not a problem for me to solve.
3. Research first, then build
Claude is a supercomputer, not a super encyclopedia. Its training stops at a cutoff date, and it can sound sure about stuff it never learned. So for anything important, I don’t assume it already knows. I send it to go look.
On 07/18 I wanted a big batch of practice questions for the Rainbow Gauntlet. First came the deep dive: at least 30 minutes of AAMC, YouTube, and Google on how the real questions are written. Then we wrote. I study from these games too… they have to be right.
Same with NCLEX. On 08/14 I opened a tab on the newest NCLEX version and had Claude read up. Do not just guess, know.
4. Many tabs, one me
I’ll work on one project or facet of the game on one tab, but instead of waiting I’ll go work on a different facet or project on another tab. Multitasking ADHD at its finest, and it winds up maximizing my time.
Occasionally, when tabs cross over in their work, they need to coordinate without me as the middleman. I used to run a conductor tab with my /tell-tab skill. It typed the handoff right into the other tab… checking the tab title and a screenshot first. Now Claude has a built-in SendMessage. Every tab can find the others by name and message them directly. No typing, no wrong-tab oopsies, and a busy tab picks it up at its next step.
5. One page for the whole plan
Chats get buried fast. So every big project gets an HTML page: the todo list up top, progress underneath. It lets me visualize the whole project or game. I can see where the gaps are and what to work on next, without asking Claude.
On 07/08 a whole week of my Slack playtest notes turned into one checklist. 51 Village items, sorted P0 to P3. I approve, Claude builds, and the page shows where we are at a glance. My Nexus 360 Academy audit log works the same way. It’s our home base, and we build off it.
Up next
Part 2 is The Night Shift. Timers, shift report, and a done list… see ya there!
Want my tools now? They’re on my Gifts shelf.