From the book
The free templates from Cleared For Take-Off
At the end of the book I said the templates are free here. These are them: the Voice Guide and the Captain’s Log.
You do not need them. Both are taught in full inside the book, and a blank document works fine. These just save you the blank page. There is nothing to sign up for and no email needed. Copy the text straight from this page, or download a Word document you can fill in.
Template 1 · Chapter 5
The Voice Guide
The Voice Guide is the brief you give an AI so that what it writes sounds like you, not like a stranger. Keep it somewhere you can find it, and attach it to every writing job you give the AI.
Fill in each part. Replace everything in [square brackets] with your own words.
VOICE GUIDE: [YOUR NAME / BRAND] MY WRITING VOICE IN THREE WORDS: [e.g. Direct. Warm. Irreverent.] SAMPLE PARAGRAPHS: Paste three to five paragraphs from your own writing that you’d be proud to have cloned. These are your calibration examples. The AI will use them to understand rhythm, sentence length, and personality, not just vocabulary. MY AUDIENCE: [Who they are, what they care about, what language they use. Be specific. ‘Creative professionals who are sceptical of corporate speak and respond to honesty over enthusiasm’ is useful. ‘Adults’ is not.] WORDS AND PHRASES I USE: [Your actual verbal tics. The phrases that show up in everything you write. ‘In practice,’ ‘here’s the honest version,’ ‘the thing nobody mentions.’ Whatever yours are.] WORDS AND PHRASES I NEVER USE: [Your no-fly list. ‘Synergy.’ ‘Leverage’ as a verb. ‘Game-changer.’ ‘In today’s fast-paced world.’ The phrases that make you wince when you see them on a page.] TONE: [One honest sentence about how you communicate. ‘Like a smart friend who happens to know a lot about this topic and isn’t going to waste your time being diplomatic about it.’ That’s mine. Find yours.]
Download the Voice Guide (Word, 38 KB)
Opens in Word, Pages or Google Docs.
How to use it
Instead of asking ‘write a social post about my new book,’ you say ‘using my Voice Guide, write a social post about my new book.’ Then paste the guide in with your request.
Rather the AI drafted it for you?
This is Prompt 1 from the Prompt Library at the back of the book, the Voice Calibration Prompt. What comes back is a first draft of your Voice Guide, written by something that has actually read your work.
Here are three examples of my writing that I’m proud of: [paste examples]. Based on these, describe my writing voice in specific terms: tone, sentence length, vocabulary level, personality. Then rewrite this paragraph [paste paragraph] in my voice: [paste something written by AI or someone else].
Template 2 · Appendix B
The Captain’s Log
Every time you use an AI tool, write one line: what you asked, which tool you used, and whether the result was good. That is the whole thing.
After two weeks, you will have a record of what works, what does not, and which crew member you reach for first. That record will tell you where to invest when you are ready.
| Date | What I asked | Which tool | Was it good? |
|---|---|---|---|
Download the Captain’s Log (Word, 38 KB)
A landscape page with room for 28 entries, and the two-week questions at the end. It prints well, if you would rather keep it with a pen.
Prefer to keep it in a document you already use? Copy these headings in and start writing.
CAPTAIN’S LOG Date | What I asked | Which tool | Was it good? AFTER TWO WEEKS What worked? What did not? Which crew member do I reach for first? Where would I invest first, when I am ready?
Want more to copy?
The free prompt library on this site has ready-to-use prompts for emails, documents, planning and learning. Also free, also no sign-up.