Guides10 min read25 May 2026
12 Prompt Anti-Patterns (And How to Fix Them)
If your AI outputs are inconsistent or mediocre, the problem is almost always your prompt. Here are 12 common mistakes and how to fix each one.
Models front-load attention on the beginning of a prompt. In a multi-task prompt, the first task gets the most thorough response and quality degrades for each subsequent task. Split unrelated tasks into separate prompts.
Asking the model to reason step by step (chain-of-thought) reliably improves accuracy on complex questions. "Think step by step" or "reason through this before answering" are among the highest-leverage phrases in prompting.
A useful mental model: treat AI like a very capable contractor, not a vending machine. Contractors produce better work when you review intermediate stages, give feedback, and ask for revisions. The same is true for AI.
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