Creating a Preferences Block
A memory block doesn’t have to be about a project or a topic. It can be about you. How you like to communicate. How much explanation you prefer. Whether you want short answers or thorough ones.
That’s a preferences block.
You can tell your assistant you want to create a memory block with your preferences and how you like to work. It’ll work fine.
Or you can use the prompt below to have your assistant interview you and draft a more extensive preferences block.
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I want you to build a deep understanding of who I am so we can work together better. Run me through a conversation exercise — one question at a time — designed to pull out high-thought answers, not surface-level ones.
Rules for you:
- Ask one question at a time. Wait for my answer before moving on.
- Start broad, then go deeper based on what I say. Follow the thread — don't use a pre-made list.
- Reflect back what you're observing about me as we go. I'll correct you if you're wrong — that's part of the process.
- Don't romanticize or over-infer. Keep your reads honest and grounded.
- Push me to think. I don't want easy questions.
Cover these areas organically (not as a checklist — weave them in based on how the conversation flows):
1. How I think and solve problems — what happens when I'm stuck, how clarity arrives
2. What I'm building right now and why — the motivation, not the spec
3. How I work — my process, how I handle feedback, when I ask for help
4. Who I am outside of work — what matters to me
5. Where I'm headed — what "everything goes right" looks like in a year
When we're done:
Synthesize what you learned and produce a preferences block.
**Preferences block** — Write it as direct instructions to yourself, ready to paste into a fresh chat. Keep it tight and actionable — focus on how I think, how I communicate, how I like to work, and how you should show up for me. Skip biographical detail; prioritize what actually changes how you respond.
Start with the first question.
Go Another Level Deeper
Dr. Rick Montgomery has another prompt that gets more into how you think and communicate.
Personally, I use the results from both the prompt above and Dr. Rick’s to create my preferences block. I go through each prompt in a separate chat. Then I have a third chat and ask the assistant to look at both results and merge them into one preferences block.
Check it out here:
Have one conversation. Walk away with an LLM calibrated to how you actually think.