Started explaining the problem to Claude before actually asking for anything — small change, made a real difference

Not a prompt list, just something that actually changed how I work day to day. I used to jump straight to the ask, write this, fix this, solve this. Lately I've been doing a step before that: just laying out the problem in plain language first, no request attached yet, just "here's what I'm dealing with." Half the time I catch the actual issue myself while typing it out, before Claude even responds. The other half, having it laid out clearly means the actual ask that follows is way more specific, and the answer that comes back is noticeably better because I'm not making it guess at what I actually need. Sounds obvious written out, explain the problem before asking for help, but I wasn't doing it consistently until I noticed the gap between answers when I skipped straight to the ask versus when I didn't. Small habit, real difference.