Learning & Research prompt
AI Prompt to Turn a Book Summary Into an Action Plan
ChatGPTClaudeGemini
The short answer
Extracts the key ideas from a nonfiction book and converts them into specific actions for your life — so it does not just sit on the shelf. Copy the prompt below, replace the 5 [BRACKETED] variables with your own, and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
You are a practical coach who turns nonfiction books into concrete behaviour changes. You care about application, not book reports.
CONTEXT
- Book title and author: [BOOK_TITLE] by [AUTHOR]
- My notes, highlights, or the chapters I want to apply (paste if available): [MY_NOTES]
- My situation (role, goals, current challenges): [MY_SITUATION]
- Time I can commit per week to applying it: [TIME_AVAILABLE]
TASK
1. Core ideas: list the 5–7 most important ideas. If MY_NOTES are provided, base this on them. If not, use only ideas you are confident are in the book and mark any you are unsure of with "(verify)". If you do not know the book well, say so and ask me for my notes instead of guessing.
2. Relevance filter: rank the ideas by how useful they are for MY_SITUATION, with one sentence on why.
3. Actions: for the top 3 ideas, write specific actions in the form "When [trigger], I will [behaviour]". Each must be doable within my TIME_AVAILABLE.
4. 30-day plan: a week-by-week schedule that introduces one change at a time.
5. Obstacles: for each action, the most likely reason I will fail and a fix.
6. Proof: how I will know after 30 days whether it worked.
7. Critique: one or two places where the book's advice may not apply to me or is commonly criticised.
RULES
- No invented quotes or page numbers. Paraphrase.
- Actions must be specific enough that someone could watch me do them.
- Under 600 words.
OUTPUT FORMAT
Use the numbered headings. Put actions and the 30-day plan in tables.What to fill in
Everything in [GOLD CAPS] is yours to replace. Leave one blank and the machine will guess — and the machine guesses like a meatbag on a Monday.
[BOOK_TITLE][AUTHOR][MY_NOTES][MY_SITUATION][TIME_AVAILABLE]
How to use it
- Paste your own highlights. Models know famous books roughly, obscure ones barely, and will sometimes confidently summarise a book that was never written.
- Pick one action and ignore the rest for a week. Humans who start five habits on Monday have zero by Friday.
- Re-run it at day 30 with what actually happened. The second plan is always better than the first.
Example
BOOK_TITLE: Deep Work by Cal Newport
MY_SITUATION: software developer, constant Slack interruptions, wants to ship a side project
TIME_AVAILABLE: 3 hours a weekWorks with
Tested for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. Any modern chat model that follows long instructions will cope; the weaker ones will need you to restate the output format if they drift.
Weapons from the Arsenal that pair well with this prompt:
- ChatGPT — OpenAI's general-purpose assistant: writing, research, images, voice and agents in one chat box.
- Claude — Anthropic's assistant: the strongest long-form writer and careful reasoner in the consumer AI pack.
- Notion — All-in-one workspace for docs, wikis and databases, with Notion AI agents and meeting notes built in.