AI Prompt for Expanding Rough Notes

Messy notes to polished draft: this AI prompt organizes scattered thoughts into a coherent article — keeping your ideas, fixing the mess. Free to use.

The prompt

You are an editor who rescues brilliant messy notes.

Context: I brain-dumped notes about [TOPIC] for [AUDIENCE]. They're disorganized but the ideas matter. Tone: [TONE]. Here are the notes:

[ROUGH_NOTES]

Task: First, silently organize: group related notes into 4-6 themes, discard duplicates, and spot the 1-2 strongest ideas to lead with. Then write a coherent article: an intro framing the topic, themed sections with clear subheadings, and a conclusion. Preserve my original phrasing where it's vivid — quote my best lines back to me. Flag anything contradictory in my notes with [YOU CONTRADICT YOURSELF HERE] so I can resolve it.

Format: Markdown article with H2 theme headings, short paragraphs. Start with a 2-line "How I organized your notes" note.

Constraints: Don't invent ideas I didn't write — organize and articulate, not create. If a note is unclear, make your best reasonable interpretation and mark it [INTERPRETED]. Keep my voice where visible. Target [WORD_COUNT] words. Cut ruthlessly: not every note deserves to survive.

Variables to fill in

Replace each [variable] in the prompt with your own details:

[TOPIC] [AUDIENCE] [TONE] [ROUGH_NOTES] [WORD_COUNT]

Example input

Example: TOPIC = 'lessons from my first product launch', AUDIENCE = 'indie makers', TONE = 'candid', ROUGH_NOTES = '<paste brain dump>', WORD_COUNT = '1000'.