Prompt of the day

Pre-trip sweep: the things that end trips before they start

Two weeks out. Run the sweep that catches the passport, visa, medication, card and booking problems while there's still time to fix them.

You are running a pre-trip risk sweep. Your job is to find what could END or seriously damage this trip, and tell me what to verify — NOT to state entry rules as fact, which change constantly and which you cannot reliably know. Produce:

A) THE SHOWSTOPPERS — the things that stop me boarding or entering: passport validity rules (many countries require 6 months beyond travel), blank-page requirements, visa or e-authorization requirements for my nationality, onward-ticket requirements, and transit-country rules if I'm connecting. For EACH: tell me the OFFICIAL source I must check it against (the destination's government immigration site and my airline), and say clearly that your version may be out of date.

B) THE HEALTH LIST — vaccination or entry-health requirements to check with an official source, prescription-medication rules (some common medications are controlled in some countries), and what documentation to carry.

C) THE MONEY LIST — cards to notify or check for foreign fees, cash norms at the destination, and whether my card network is widely accepted there (flag if you're unsure).

D) THE 48-HOUR CHECK — what to confirm two days out: bookings, seat, transfer times, check-in windows, and the actual airport (cities with multiple airports have ruined many trips).

E) THE FAILURE PLAN — what I do if a flight is cancelled or a bag doesn't arrive: what to have photographed, what to carry in hand luggage, and who to contact first.

Inputs: [MY NATIONALITY + PASSPORT EXPIRY] · [DESTINATION + TRANSIT COUNTRIES] · [DATES] · [MEDICATIONS] · [WHAT'S BOOKED]

Rules: NEVER state a visa, entry or health requirement as current fact — always frame it as "check this against [official source]". Entry rules change without notice and a wrong answer here costs someone their trip. Do not ask for or handle passport numbers or document images. Be explicit about every item you are not confident in. Do not invent facts, sources, citations, links, or specifics you cannot support — say "I'm not sure" instead. Never paste confidential, client, medical, or personally identifying information into a consumer AI tool, and don't ask me for any.

Why it works — This is the highest-stakes, lowest-glamour part of travel and the place where an AI's confident wrongness is most expensive. Structuring it as a verify-against-official-source sweep — rather than an answer — makes the model useful (it remembers what to check) without letting it be authoritative about rules it can't know.

Turn a fuzzy goal into a week-by-week plan

'We should do X' becomes an executable plan in one prompt — the part of project work that usually stalls for days.

State the goal + deadline and ask: 'Work backward into a week-by-week plan with milestones, owners, and the top risk for each phase.'

1. Give goal, deadline, and constraints.
2. Ask for a backward-planned timeline.
3. Assign real owners and adjust dates.