Summarise any doc, paper or meeting
Get the gist and the action items without reading every word.
Paste or upload the document and ask for a structured summary — 5 key points, decisions, action items, and what's missing. For long docs and research, Google's NotebookLM is purpose-built.
Long documents bury their point. A lazy 'summarise this' gives mush; asking for a clear structure gives you something you can act on. For anything high-stakes, still read the original around the key bits.
- ▸Google NotebookLM free — upload documents and ask questions across them — great for research
- ▸Claude — strong on long documents; paste or upload and ask
- ▸ChatGPT — quick summaries with file upload
Ask for structure, not 'a summary'
The single upgrade that changes everything is asking for a specific shape instead of a generic summary. Key points, then decisions, then action items produces something you can act on; 'summarise this' produces beige. Structure forces the model to organise the content the way your brain wants to consume it.
Tailor it to your purpose
A summary should differ depending on why you need it. Tell it the lens — 'summarise for someone deciding whether to invest', 'pull only what's relevant to marketing', 'the 3 things I need before the meeting'. And ask what's unclear or missing; the gaps are often more important than the content, and a plain summary hides them.
Interrogate, and verify the stakes
Stop reading the summary and start interrogating the document — ask follow-ups, request different depths, feed several documents at once and ask for the through-line and contradictions. But for anything high-stakes — a contract, a medical or legal document — the summary is a map, not the territory; read those parts in the original, because a summary can quietly drop the one caveat that changes everything.
- 1Paste or upload the document.
- 2Ask for a structured summary: key points, decisions, action items, and gaps.
- 3Tell it your purpose so it pulls the relevant parts.
- 4For anything important, skim the original around the points that matter.
Summarising prompts
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