Claude Power Tips
New to Claude (coming from ChatGPT)? Same idea, plus three things: Projects (set up once, every chat knows your office), Artifacts (living docs you refine in place), and Extended thinking (step-by-step through a whole NOFO).
Context first, ask second. Brief Claude like a smart new colleague — background before request.
Iterate relentlessly. “Quantify the targets” · “cut jargon” · “tighten to 150 words.”
Assign a role + audience. “You are a federal program officer reading this cold.”
Make Claude critique itself before you do — ask for weaknesses, then fixes.
Flip the interview. “Ask me one question at a time until you can draft this.”
Demand links + deadlines on every result — then verify at the source.
Ask for your tracker’s exact columns so results paste straight in.
Paste your template’s headings. Structure in = structure out.
Evaluate with three critics: funder, budget officer, skeptical department head.
Claude Projects: upload your background doc, bio bank, and templates once — reuse forever.
Custom instructions carry your non-negotiables into every chat.
Upload the NOFO; extract requirements into a compliance table with a “Verified?” column — with Extended thinking on.
Ask what’s missing, not just what’s there.
Draft from a logic model or outline — never a blank page.
Generate variants: data-led, story-led, urgency-led.
If you’d run the same prompt three times, it’s a Skill — build it once.
Patch, don’t rebuild. Every Skill miss becomes one new instruction line.
Score against the funder’s real rubric, like a tired reviewer at 5 PM.
Letters of support: one real paragraph per partner in, non-boilerplate letters out.
Deep Research before the funder meeting: a sourced report, not a search.
Never paste procurement-sensitive or partner-strategy details — if it’s not already public record, it doesn’t go in the prompt.
Humans own every fact, figure, and citation. Claude drafts — you author.
If you pasted it twice, it belongs in the Project.
A Skill is a reusable SKILL.md — Instructions · Examples · References — that Claude follows every time you invoke it.
Build it: Define → Build with /skill-creator → Test on 3 real inputs and patch.
Grant skill ideas: NOFO Intake Reviewer · Letter-of-Support Drafter · Concept-Paper Reviewer.
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