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Test your Align file

Two chats, one question, the same AI. You judge the result.

Before you start

Have your Align file ready. It's the file you downloaded at the end of your session.
Use the AI you already write with. Any one will do.
If your AI remembers past chats, turn that off for the test, or use a temporary chat if it offers one. Otherwise the first chat already knows you, and the test isn't fair.
Check your AI isn't set to train on your chats. Your file is yours; share it only where you trust the settings.

Step 1: without your file

Open a new chat. Don't add your file. Paste Question 1 below. Copy the answer somewhere you can see it.

Step 2: with your file

Open a second new chat. Attach your Align file, or paste its text, with this line:

This file is my own words about my own work, including phrasings I rejected. Draft in this voice. Do not smooth it. If something is not in the file, ask me rather than invent it.

Then paste the same Question 1.

Step 3: read both

Put the two answers side by side. Read them out loud. Ask yourself: which one could I send as it is? Which one would I have to rewrite?

Step 4: keep the first answer

Don't regenerate, and don't edit. Asking again until you like the result turns a test into a search.

Step 5: fresh chats for every question

A chat remembers everything earlier in it. For the next question, open two new chats and start again from Step 1.

The five questions

Write a short reply to a client who has asked what makes my work different.

Write the opening paragraph of a proposal for a client who has asked me to scope an engagement.

Write the opening paragraph of a note to my board before next week's meeting, asking for their view on a strategic decision I have to make.

Write an email to a long-standing client turning down a request that falls outside what I do, and suggest what I'd do instead.

Write a one-page note to my team explaining a decision they won't like: what I decided, why, what it costs us, and what I need from them.

Or use your own. Anything you'd normally write will work.

When you're done

Delete the test chats. In most AI apps: find the chat in the sidebar, open its menu (the three dots), choose Delete.

If you can hear yourself in the second answer, you've seen it. Keep your file close, and give it to every AI that writes for you.