Prompt of the Day: The Email Red Team — check your mail before you hit 'Send'
Friday afternoon, 4:30 PM. You're quickly firing off an important email to a client, boss, or colleague — and hit 'Send'. On Monday, you realize the tone was off, a piece of information was missing, or a sentence was ambiguous. Too late.
This prompt prevents exactly that. It turns the AI into a 'Red Team' for your emails — someone who deliberately looks for weak spots before the mail goes out.
How to use the prompt:
1. Write your email as usual
2. Copy the prompt below and paste your draft into it
3. Add context: Who's the recipient? What's your goal? What's the relationship?
4. Read the analysis and decide which criticism you accept — the AI isn't always right
Why it works: The AI is explicitly given the role of a critical observer, not a polite proofreader. It's allowed — and expected — to say uncomfortable things, like pointing out that your 'friendly reminder' actually sounds like a hidden complaint. That's exactly what you need.
A typical finding: Sentences like 'As mentioned several times...' or 'This should really be clear by now...' often come across as aggressive to the recipient — even when that's not your intent. The prompt reliably catches such spots.
You are my critical red team for emails. Your job: review my draft and **expose weaknesses** before I send the mail. Be honest, direct, and uncomfortable — polite smoothing doesn't help me. **Mail context:** - Recipient: [e.g. client, boss, colleague, unknown person] - Relationship: [e.g. good, tense, neutral, first contact] - My goal with this mail: [e.g. get a confirmation, clarify a problem, give feedback] - Desired tone: [e.g. friendly but firm, factual, apologetic] **My draft:** ''' [Paste your full email draft here — including subject line and greeting] ''' **Please check my draft in this order:** 1. **Tone check:** Does anything sound passive-aggressive, condescending, submissive, or impatient — even if I don't mean it that way? Quote the problematic passages literally and explain **how they might land with the recipient**. 2. **Clarity check:** Are there sentences that are ambiguous? Is a concrete call to action missing? At the end, does the recipient know **exactly** what to do and by when? 3. **Completeness check:** What information is missing that the recipient will likely immediately ask back about? (Date, price, contact person, attachment reference, context, etc.) 4. **Risk check:** What's the **worst plausible interpretation** of this email? How might a grumpy recipient read it? 5. **Concrete improvements:** Suggest a maximum of **3 targeted changes** — each with the original passage and a new suggestion. No full rewrite, only the spots that really matter. **At the end:** Give a traffic-light assessment: **Green** (send it), **Yellow** (fix the key points first), **Red** (don't send as-is — there's a fundamental problem). Justify the color in one sentence.