Teo almost gave up on the thank-you notes

Today's Tip: Thank-you notes that sound like you

Most thank-you notes read like they came from the pharmacy card aisle because they did… the person writing them copied the card.

Let me explain…

A friend of mine named Teo Villanueva lives in Santa Fe. He's 68, works part-time shelving books at a used bookstore, and spends two mornings a week as a church sexton. In August his wife Luz had hip surgery, and the kindness started arriving before she was even home from the hospital.

Casseroles. Rides to physical therapy. A neighbor who mowed the lawn without being asked. Teo's sister flew in from Jersey for ten days and did every load of laundry in the house.

By late September Teo had a shoebox of cards and sticky notes sitting on the kitchen counter and a stack of blank note cards he kept meaning to use. Twelve people. Twelve thank-you notes.

Every time he sat down to write one, the same sentence came out… "Thank you so much for your kindness during Luz's recovery. It meant the world to us." Twelve times. Same sentence. He hated it.

Here's what he tried next, and what finally worked. He opened Claude on his laptop and typed out, in plain messy English, what each person had actually done. Not the thank-you… the specific thing. "Marta made that green chile stew Luz loves and dropped off two containers so we had dinner for three nights." "Father Reyes came by twice just to sit with Luz when I had to run errands and didn't try to fill the silence."

Then he asked Claude to turn each one into a short, warm thank-you note in his voice… and he gave Claude a sample of how he actually writes.

The notes that came back read like Teo wrote them. Because, in a way, he did. He supplied the specific thing. He supplied the tone. Claude did the arranging.

Here's the prompt that does it.

Teo did this for all twelve notes in about forty minutes. He printed none of them. He copied each one onto a card by hand, which is what makes a thank-you note feel like a thank-you note… but the hard part, the staring-at-a-blank-card part, was done.

And the notes were different from each other. The one to his sister ran six sentences and mentioned the specific smell of folded laundry. The one to Father Reyes was four sentences and said something about silence being its own gift. Each person who got a card knew it was for them.

I know what you're thinking. "Isn't it a little dishonest to let AI write a thank-you note?" I understand the worry. But think about what you're actually doing. You're not asking Claude to pretend to be you. You're giving it the memory, the person, the tone, and the specific detail.

You're doing the thinking. Claude is doing the arranging. It's the same as asking a thoughtful friend, "Can you help me say this?" Nobody says that's dishonest. The sentiment belongs to you either way.

If you've got a stack of blank cards and a guilty feeling, this is the night to clear it. Pick one person. Write out, in the messiest English you can, what they actually did. Then let Claude help you say it in your voice.

The cards don't write themselves. But they also don't have to feel like homework.

★ Quick Wins

Skill Builder: Proofreading your own words

The skill today isn't writing. It's reading back what you wrote.

Most people, when they ask an AI for help with writing, read the first draft once, decide it's good enough, and send it. That's where most of the "AI-sounding" problem comes from. The AI doesn't know what you'd never say out loud. You do.

Here's the move. Before you send anything an AI helped you write — an email, a note, a letter, a reply — paste it back in and ask one careful question. Not "is this good?" That gets a useless answer. Something sharper.

Try this prompt on your next draft.

Try this once this week. Use it on any email you'd be a little nervous to send. You'll catch at least one thing that would have made you cringe when you read it the next day.

Good writing is just reading back what you wrote and being honest. The AI can help you be honest faster.