Why Your AI Prompts Produce Noise Instead of Decisions
Stop asking vague AI questions. Use this focus framework instead.
Most of us have now had the same experience. You ask your AI tool a question. The screen fills with a long, reasonable answer. It sounds informed. It covers many angles. When you reach the end, you are exactly where you started.
In this post we will:
Notice how vague prompts create volume without decisions.
Work with one Precision Research Framework that asks for less and gives you more to work with.
Open a discussion about how to use AI to sharpen your questions rather than outsource your judgement.
Scattered questions cause more issues than incorrect system outputs. You asked for everything and received it. What you needed was focus.
This post is a Slow AI reframing of a practice from Raghav Mehra at Cash & Cache, a newsletter about AI, products, and strategy. This experiment treats AI as a deliberate research partner requiring clear intent, rather than an instant briefing machine.
Hurried prompts are often too broad. They provide information without advancing your thinking. Scatter prompts prioritise coverage over clarity. They simulate progress without influencing a decision.
Focus prompts require you to define your decision and narrow the scope before generation begins. You pause long enough to ask what would genuinely shift your view. This is the basis of the Precision Research Fram
Step-by-step
Try this prompt with your AI tool of choice:
I am researching [SPECIFIC TOPIC] because I need to [DECISION OR OUTCOME]. Refine the question with me, then research it using these three stages.
TARGETING
Ask me three things:
What is the most focused version of this question that would still be useful?Which three to five signals would genuinely change my decision?What can we exclude to avoid generic coverage?
Help me answer briefly, then restate the focused question and chosen signals.
EXECUTION
Research only this focused question.
Provide three weighted insights.
For each, state what it enables me to do.
Flag uncertainty clearly.
VALIDATION
Ask me: “What would make this research more actionable for your context?”
Offer two follow up questions to tighten the work.
Before you run this, you can add simple guardrails. For example, you might ask the system to avoid case studies from sectors you do not work in, or to ignore trends older than three years, or to skip basic definitions you already know.
The goal is to insert a pause between your initial impulse and the AI output. You invite the system to ask you for focus before it offers you answers.
If you are new to Slow AI, here is our first invitation.
A moment from Raghav Mehra
Let me show you the difference with a simple question I asked: “What matters most when building a newsletter?”
My scatter prompt gave me the usual:
“Consistency, quality content, audience understanding, effective distribution, clear value, strong engagement, sustainable monetisation...”
All technically true. All so broad that I could not act on any of it.
When I rewrote the question as a focus prompt, everything changed. The system gave me three weighted insights for my specific stage:
My first hundred subscribers would come from conversation, not distribution. One-to-one DMs mattered more than SEO. Write for real people I know rather than imaginary audiences.
Consistency mattered more than frequency. A monthly rhythm I could sustain for six months was better than a weekly plan I would abandon.
Early monetisation was a clearer signal of value than growth metrics. Offer something small and paid around subscriber fifty, not five thousand.
The scatter version took five seconds. The focused version took two minutes of framing. Only one of them helped me think.
Stop AI from stealing your voice
Download this free guide to learn how to keep your voice when writing with AI.
What to do with it
If you want to share:
Share the first focused question that genuinely changed how the system answered you.
Point to the first moment where you had to remove a vague element or a buzzword in order to state what you really cared about.
If you did this as a team, describe what shifted when colleagues had to agree on three signals that would actually change a decision.
The aim is to sharpen your sense of how AI can support thinking that is honest about constraints, rather than feeding the habit of collecting more and more inputs.
Why this matters
AI makes it easy to produce pages of plausible content, which encourages scatter thinking. You can generate ten ideas in minutes and skim a field in an hour. The volume feels productive, but it becomes harder to notice which question would actually change a decision. Scatter prompts feed this drift. They create movement without direction.
The Precision Research Framework is a way to restore focus. It is not about clever prompting. It is about discipline. Asking for three insights instead of thirty. Choosing the one question that matters in your context.
If you enjoyed this guest practice from Raghav Mehra, you can visit Cash & Cache, where he writes about AI breakthroughs, real world applications, and practical strategies for using AI to support business thinking rather than replace it.
From AI Career Reflection: A Prompt to Evaluate Professional Adaptability
Learn Grow Monetize & and I were struck by the requirement for a conscious pause in an accelerating career landscape.
Daria Cupareanu argued that professional wellbeing is now inseparable from adaptability. Positioning for change is a requirement for peace of mind. Without a proactive approach to disruption, the individual loses agency, making wellness a casualty of the shifting economic environment.
Mia Kiraki 🎭 challenged the assumption that high-tech tools necessitate high-speed outputs. The primary value of AI is the acquisition of ‘thinking time’. Using these tools to manage volume allows for a slower, more effective pace that preserves the human capacity for deep reflection in an otherwise frantic environment.
Chip Hughes identified a fundamental shift in the definition of security. It no longer resides in job titles or planned structures, but in adaptive capacity and the stamina to remain present. By offloading the ‘swamp’ of administrative noise to AI, the professional recovers the attention required for meaningful connection and deep work.
The primary challenge in the workplace involves transitioning from fixed plans to continuous learning, rather than technical proficiency. We must use technology to buy back the presence that the noise of the modern workplace seeks to erode.
How I Plan a Week of Notes Without Losing Hours
Most of my Substack growth comes from Notes, but evenings and weekends were impossible to manage because of family, life, and generally just being a human.
WriteStack has resolved this for me. I can map out a full week in minutes, stay clear about what I want to say, and focus on the writing instead of the admin.
It keeps me slow but consistent.
*This is an affiliate link, and I receive a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use it.
If you try this week’s prompt, Raghav Mehra and I would love to know how you are turning scattered questions into more focussed ones.
We read and respond to all your comments.
Go slow.
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Thats true Karen! Start with the right context and clear objectives, the less you have to haggle with AI later to get your desired results 😅
I have just used this research prompt as part of my topic refinement for a Guest Post I am writing. It gave me deeper, valuable, and interesting insights to choose from to include... thank you both for this!