# How to Stop AI Slop in ChatGPT Emails and Proposals

Get emails people answer and proposals a client reads past the first line, straight from ChatGPT or Claude in a browser. One 733-character block in your custom instructions puts the ask, the result or the offer first, and it fits inside ChatGPT's free plan.

From the book: [Stop AI Slop](https://youcanbuildthings.com/books/stop-ai-slop.md)

Web page: https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/chatgpt-custom-instructions-for-writing-emails

Hello builders,

ChatGPT can write emails people answer and proposals a client reads past the first line. You can set that up once, in your browser, tonight. Here are my ChatGPT custom instructions for writing emails, reports and proposals, one block with no terminal involved. First, though, here is what the person on the other end sees right now. A freelancer who hired on Upwork for the first time wrote up what the proposals looked like from the client's chair:

> Everybody's proposal reads like AI. This turns me off more than I thought it was going to.

That is AI slop from the reader's side of the screen, and this client spotted it in proposal after proposal.

In the very next point, the same client said what would have worked:

> I wanted to see them talking about what they're going to do instead of talking about themselves, how they feel excited about this opportunity, their past experience, or about their upwork scores. For every proposal I read, I basically skipped any part where they're talking about themselves or any metrics.

([u/The_Battleship, "Proposal thoughts as a client," r/Upwork, 63 upvotes](https://www.reddit.com/r/Upwork/comments/1sxwqa6/proposal_thoughts_as_a_client/))

That second quote describes the fix: the reader wants their part first, so we tell the model to put it there.

## The block

```text
Write about 80% of the way to ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English. Put the answer first. Use short sentences, the active voice and one name for one thing. Keep the words that say how sure you are. Names, dates and numbers stay exactly as they are.

Emails: put the ask in the first line. Give the context in three lines or fewer. End with the deadline or the next step.

Reports: give the result first, then the evidence, then the next step.

Proposals: in the first five lines, say what the reader gets, by when, and what you need from them. Then give the details.

Procedures (SOPs): write strictly to ASD-STE100. One instruction per sentence. Put each condition before its action. Put each warning before the step it protects.
```

ASD-STE100 is the plain English of aircraft repair manuals, and ChatGPT already knows it by name. "About 80% of the way" keeps your words like "probably" and "might," so a guess still reads as a guess. The block runs 733 characters. When I read OpenAI's help pages for the book, custom instructions allowed 1,500 characters on the Free and Go plans.

In ChatGPT, we paste it into Settings › Personalization › Custom Instructions. If you work in a Project, paste it into Project › ••• › Project settings as well. OpenAI's help page, when I read it for the book, said a Project's own instructions override your custom instructions inside it. In Claude, click your initials in the lower left, then Settings › "Instructions for Claude." We put it there, or in a project's instructions if you keep your business writing in one project. Start a new chat after you save it.


## What it does to an email

![ChatGPT custom instructions for writing emails: a 72-word email to Priya with the longest sentence 46 words, where "I hope you're having a great week!" and "circle back" are cut and the question sits inside the last sentence, rewritten as 35 words with the longest sentence 15. Line 1 is "Can you choose by Friday: renew Mixpanel, or look at other analytics tools?" with the deadline inside it, then the context in three lines or fewer, signed Sam.](https://youcanbuildthings.com/images/articles/chatgpt-custom-instructions-for-writing-emails/chatgpt-email-question-and-deadline-first.jpg)

One note before the numbers. I couldn't run ChatGPT while I wrote the book. The email, proposal and report Afters below are my rewrites to the format, using only the facts in each original. Your model will word them differently, and the order is what you check.

The question for Priya in the original is whether to renew Mixpanel or look at other tools, by Friday. It sits in the back half of a 46-word sentence, behind "I hope you're having a great week!" and "I wanted to circle back." With the email line, the question and its deadline become line 1, and the context sits under it in three lines or fewer before Sam signs off. The email drops from 72 words to 35, and the longest sentence drops from 46 words to 15.

Proposals get the same treatment, and they are where the complaint from the Upwork client lands. The freelance proposal in the book opened with "I am thrilled to submit my proposal," then eight years of experience, then the actual offer in its third sentence. With the proposal line, line 1 reads "You get a full set of redesigned onboarding mockups, about three weeks after we start." Line 3 asks for the Figma files. The eight years of experience moved to the last line, where it backs up the offer. The proposal went from 79 words to 45, and the client sees what they get before anything else.

Reports work the same way. "This week saw continued progress across several workstreams" becomes "We finished 14 of the 20 planned customer interviews this week," because the result is the one number a manager can check.

So which email do you test first? Open your sent folder and find one that never got an answer. If its question isn't in the first line, paste it into a new chat with the block in place and type "Rewrite this email." Read line 1 of what comes back, and send it.

Now go build something this weekend!

John Cook

---

Get the book: Stop AI Slop, $12.99 on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4hV42rL