A whole show built around one scene
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I watched a show on Netflix last night called "You Don't Know Me." A young guy from South London is on trial for murder. The evidence against him is overwhelming. Instead of letting a lawyer speak for him during his closing argument, he stands up and tells his own story. The WHOLE show is centered around that scene. Can you imagine a Netflix producer coming to you and telling you: "I want you to tell the story about a guy falsely (we think) accused of murder and the only part of the trial you can focus on is the closing argument. Oh, in fact, I want the entire show to be told from that angle." I would panic. People's attention spans are so short these days. How could a show be entertaining with those kind of constraints? But the more I thought about it the more I realized it could actually be kind of fun... Some of the largest decisions were already made for me and I wouldn't be starting with a blank page. Jack Butcher (Visualize Value) talks about this all the time: "Make one decision to save 1,000 decisions." He picked black and white vector images on day one. Every illustration after that gets easier because the deliberation is gone. The constraint is the engine. But AI doesn't have a default constraint. You have to bring one with you. The model will give you hundreds of versions if you ask. It'll generate forever and never tell you to stop. With AI, you need to build the box yourself. The tighter the box, the better the output. Here's a prompt I built called Build the Box. Run it before your next AI session. Tell it what you want to make and it won't let you start generating until you've actually built the box: Before I ask you to generate anything, help me build the box.
Here’s what I want to make: [describe the project, content, product, design]
After I describe the project, respond only with question 1. Wait for my answer before moving to question 2. Don’t move on until I answer each one.
1. Who is the ONE person reading or using this? Name them. Not “small business owners.” Name an actual person or a very specific role.
2. What’s the exact format and length? Pick numbers. 250 words. 3 slides. 1 page. 60-second video. 3. What’s the one thing the reader does, believes, or feels differently after consuming this? Pick one. Not three. 4. What’s the related thing you’re tempted to include but you’re cutting? Name it. 5. What’s the one decision I can lock right now that removes 1,000 future decisions? Voice, framework, color, tool, structure. Pick one and lock it. When I’ve answered all five, write the brief back to me as one tight paragraph. That’s the box. Now we generate inside it.
Use it the next time you sit down to make something with AI. You'll start with a real box instead of a vague request and a thousand variations. You don't need more options. Stay Curious, Click below to discover your Cognitive Fingerprint. |
