Community Blog

Hacks: Decoding a Vague Commission Brief in Under Five Minutes

The dimensions / deadline / deliverable-format triangle. Ask all three up front. If the client can't answer all three, the brief isn't ready for work — and neither are you.

The brief arrived at 4:48 on a Friday. It said, in full: "Hi! We loved your work and would love to commission a piece for our new office. Something that feels like *us* — maybe abstract, maybe not. Open to ideas! Let us know your pricing and timeline. Excited!"

Hacks: The Devlog Pacing Trick That Makes a Boring Week Worth Reading

Most devlogs lead with what's next and bury the interesting part. Try the problem-in-the-middle structure instead, and watch a week you were embarrassed about turn into a post people finish.

Hacks: The One Caption Trick That Makes a Photo Portfolio Stop Feeling Generic

One technical detail. One emotional detail. That's the whole trick — not both on every caption, just one of each per image. Six before/after rewrites that prove it.

Go look at three photo portfolios right now. Pick the first three you click on — any photographer, any genre. I'll wait.

Hacks: How to De-Spike a Difficult Client Email Without Losing the Client

One sentence, two moves: acknowledge first, reframe second. Three before/afters from real scope-creep moments, and the reply template you can lift into your next one.

An illustrator I'll call M. got this email on a Tuesday morning: "Hey! Loving the direction. Quick ask — could we also get a square version, a story version, a banner, and a dark-mode variant? Just so we have everything in one place. No rush!"

Hacks: The Subject Line Rewrite That Saved a Launch Newsletter

A noun-led first word opens at more than twice the rate of a verb-led one. Here's the scannability math, the inbox context, and a sixty-second copy-paste you can try tonight.

A designer I know was about to send a launch newsletter to 4,200 people. She had a subject line she thought was fine. It was: "I shipped something weird this week."

Hacks: The Two-Word Addition That Makes Claude Stop Being a Coward

Claude hedges when you ask for opinions. Two specific words, added to any prompt, flip it from diplomatic waffle to committed take. Here's the phrase, why it works, and when not to use it.

Last week we needed to pick between two domain names for a small project. Both were available. Both were short. One had a hyphen and was the obvious meaning; the other was a clean made-up word that took two seconds longer to explain but looked better on a sticker. We asked Claude…

Hacks: The 12-Word Prompt That Fixes Homework Help Forever

Most parents type 'help my kid with this' and the AI gives away the answer. One small change completely transforms it.

It's a Tuesday night. The math worksheet is on the kitchen table between you and a nine-year-old whose patience ran out approximately at question three. You've tried explaining it twice. The pencil is being held the way people hold forks when they're mad at the fork. In a moment…

Hacks: Spend One Saturday Using Your Own Product Keyboard-Only

The single fastest way to find your product's accessibility holes is to spend one Saturday using it without a mouse. AI helps you take notes and fix the obvious things.

Hacks: The 12-Minute Cover Letter That Actually Sounds Like You

One copy-pasteable prompt that turns a job ad plus four short answers into a cover letter that reads like you wrote it. Tested on real postings.

A friend forwarded a cover letter last month and asked if it was any good. It opened: "I am writing to express my strong interest in the Operations Manager position at your esteemed company, as advertised on LinkedIn." The rest was three paragraphs of the same thing. Detail-orien…

Hacks: The Four-Sentence Text That Restarts a Conversation You Thought Was Closed

A specific four-part message structure that quietly reopens a line of communication — with an ex, an old friend, a family member, a former colleague — without making it weird.

There is a message in your drafts folder right now that has been there for longer than you want to admit. It's to somebody you used to talk to every week and now don't — an ex you parted with on okay terms, an old friend who moved, a cousin who stopped answering after a family th…

Hacks: The 12-Word Prompt That Fixes Most Error Messages Forever

Every product is full of 'Sorry, an unexpected error occurred.' A 12-word prompt template can rewrite them all into something that actually helps.

A product manager I know sent me a screenshot last month. It was the error state in his company's billing dashboard. The exact text, every character: **"Sorry, an unexpected error occurred. Please try again later."**

Hacks: The Prompt That Turns a Code Diff Into a Changelog People Will Actually Read

The prompt that takes a raw diff and turns it into the changelog entry you were going to write tomorrow and now don't have to.

It's 4:47 on a Friday. Somebody on your team just merged a release candidate, the deploy window is in thirteen minutes, and the changelog reads like this: