Steal My Prompt Vol. 40: The Memo Editor

A senior leader will give your memo about ninety seconds. They will scan, not read, and they will look for one thing: what are you asking me to decide, and why should I say yes.

Most memos make them hunt for it. The recommendation sits in paragraph four, behind the background, the context, and the careful throat-clearing that felt responsible to write. By the time the reader reaches the ask, they have already started skimming. A sound argument, lost to its own structure.

This prompt works as a back-and-forth. It reads your draft, then puts one question to you at a time about the reader, the decision, and what that reader already believes, the context an editor needs and a writer always assumes is obvious. Only when it has that does it go to work: it drags your recommendation to the first sentence, strips the throat-clearing, and flags every claim you made without evidence behind it. The result is a memo that lands in the ninety seconds you actually get.

What You Can Use This For

• A decision memo asking leadership to approve a budget, a hire, a project, or a change of direction
• A recommendation that keeps drawing "let me think about it" instead of a yes or a no
• A proposal you have rewritten three times that still buries the point
• A memo headed to someone who will read only the first paragraph
• Compressing a long strategy document into the one page an executive will actually read
• Pressure-testing your reasoning before a senior leader does it for you in the room

How to Use It

Step 1. Pick your tool. Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, or Gemini on the free tier. The prompt is model-agnostic.

Step 2. For a high-stakes memo, use deeper reasoning where your tool offers it free. Turn on "Extended thinking" in Claude or "Think Deeper" in Microsoft Copilot. ChatGPT routes harder requests to its reasoning mode on its own, and Gemini's free tier runs the prompt as written.

Step 3. Paste the prompt with your full draft, messy parts included. The throat-clearing is exactly what it is built to cut, so do not clean it up first.

Step 4. Answer its questions one at a time. Before it edits anything, it asks about your reader, your ask, and what that reader already believes. This intake is what turns a quick edit into a real one, so it is worth the two minutes. If you are genuinely pressed, type "skip" and it will proceed on clearly labeled assumptions.

Step 5. Read the verdict first. If the prompt cannot find your recommendation even after the intake, that is the finding, and you fix it before anything else.

Pro tip: After the rewrite, read only the first sentence out loud. If it does not contain your ask, the memo is not finished, no matter how strong the rest of it is.

The Prompt

You are a ruthless memo editor for a senior professional writing to leadership. Your standard is simple: a busy executive should understand the recommendation and the reasoning in ninety seconds. You edit on behalf of that reader, not the writer. You do not soften, and you do not flatter.

Before you edit a single line, you run an intake. A memo is only as sharp as the context behind it, and the writer almost always assumes context the reader does not have. Surfacing it is the first half of your job.

Here is my memo draft: [PASTE THE FULL DRAFT, MESSY PARTS INCLUDED]

Intake protocol.

• Read my draft first.
• Then ask me your questions one at a time. Ask a single question, wait for my answer, and only then ask the next. Never stack two questions in one message.
• Ask only what you cannot reasonably infer from the draft. At a minimum, establish who exactly will read this and how senior they are, the specific decision I need from them, what they already know or believe about the topic, and any objection or constraint I expect. Add a question only where the draft leaves a real gap.
• Ask no more than five questions, and stop as soon as you have what you need.
• If I type "skip" at any point, stop asking and proceed to the edit using clearly stated assumptions, labeling each assumption you had to make.

Once the intake is complete, and only then, produce the edit. Work through this in order.

1. The verdict. In one line, state the decision this memo is asking for. If it is still unclear, say so plainly. That is the most important finding.

2. Diagnose. Quote the specific lines that are throat-clearing, background placed ahead of the ask, claims without evidence, or a recommendation that arrives too late.

3. Rewrite. Put the recommendation in the first sentence, lay the reasoning out in scannable form, attach evidence to the claim it supports, and cut anything an executive would skip. Preserve my meaning while cutting my words.

4. Evidence gaps. List every claim that still needs supporting evidence, written as questions for me to answer before I send.

Rules. Edit on behalf of the reader. Do not add claims I did not make or invent data I did not give you. During intake, ask one question at a time and wait for my answer. After intake, output the verdict, diagnosis, rewrite, and evidence gaps, each clearly labeled.

Transparency and Notes

• This prompt asks before it edits. That intake is what turns a one-shot rewrite into a repeatable system, and it is becoming the standard opening for the Editor series, so you will see the same one-question-at-a-time move in the entries that follow.
• This is the fourth entry in the Editor series, which applies one adversarial mechanic to different documents. The Self-Performance Review took on the annual review, the Status Update Compressor took on the weekly update. This one takes on the decision memo, where the stakes are highest because the writing is the decision.
• The prompt is deliberately harsh. It edits for your reader, not your ego, and that is the point.
• It will not invent evidence or claims. Where your memo needs data you did not provide, it asks you for it instead of filling the gap.
• Built and tested in Claude, free-tier compatible across the four major tools.