Today’s Practice

Pick a real multi-step task you have on hand, and hold a conversation with AI for at least 15 turns (one question + one answer = one turn).

Example tasks:

  • “Help me plan a family trip (destination, itinerary, budget, packing list)”
  • “Help me set up a personal blog from scratch (pick a platform, choose a theme, write the first post)”
  • “Help me analyze a career decision (take stock of where I am, pros and cons, action plan)”

Let the conversation unfold naturally without forcing strict structure at first, but do pause around turn 10 and run the progress-summary checkpoint. Send this message:

“Let’s pause for a moment. What key points have we settled on so far? What questions are still unresolved?”

Copy and save the AI’s summary, then continue past turn 15.

What to Observe

  1. Did it drift? Does the summary at turn 10 still match your original goal from turn 1, or has the topic drifted off-track?
  2. Was the summary effective? After the progress summary, did the AI’s subsequent responses become more focused?
  3. When should you stop? By turns 15–20, is the quality of the AI’s responses improving or declining?

If the conversation drifted, don’t force it back. Open a new conversation instead. Paste the saved summary and add “Based on the above progress, continue helping me [your original task]” as your opening message, and see whether the AI can pick up accurately.

Why This Matters

Context management is the hardest of Part 3’s three skills to grasp from reading alone: the longer a conversation, the more AI forgets early information, and a single progress summary noticeably improves focus. These insights won’t land without practice.

Today’s Takeaway

Long conversations aren’t scary because they drift; they’re scary because you don’t notice when they’ve drifted. A progress summary is your calibration checkpoint: check it every 10–15 turns to make sure you’re still on course.

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