Gemini Course Part 1: Write Faster and Clean Data

Part 1 of 3 · Days 1–9 · Write Faster, Fix Your Inbox, Clean Up Data

Most people open Gemini, type a vague sentence, get a vague answer, and decide "AI is overrated." The problem is almost never the model. It's the habit. After 25+ years in IT and years of building platforms for teams of engineers, I've learned that tools only pay off when you build a routine around them.

So this is a routine: 28 days, 15 minutes a night. Three parts. Eight modules. By the end you'll write faster, tame your inbox, clean messy data, build documents, research properly, connect your files, automate repeat work, and finish with a capstone project you can show.

What you'll do in Part 1: master one prompt formula, clone your writing voice, triage email and long threads, and turn messy lists and logs into clean tables. Every day has a 3-minute lesson, an 8-minute exercise and a 4-minute "save it" step.

Before Day 1: 10-minute setup

1. Use a Google account with Google AI Pro (or the free tier; every exercise works on both, Pro just gives you higher limits and the strongest models).
2. Open gemini.google.com or the Gemini app. Check the model picker and pick the strongest model offered for "thinking" tasks; use the fast one for quick drafts.
3. Create a Google Doc called "My Gemini Playbook." Every night you paste your best prompt into it. By Day 28 it's your personal library.
4. Review your activity and privacy settings so you know what is saved.

Security rule #1 (the DevSecOps in me insists): never paste passwords, API keys, tokens, customer personal data, or confidential client documents into any consumer AI tool. Replace sensitive values with placeholders like [HOST-1] or [CLIENT] first. We'll practice this in Day 9.

The one formula: R-C-T-F

Letter	Meaning	Example
Role	Who Gemini should act as	"You are a senior SRE writing for executives."
Context	The facts it can't guess	"Checkout API was down 22 minutes; cause was an expired certificate."
Task	The single thing to produce	"Write a status update."
Format	Shape, length, tone	"Under 120 words, 3 bullets, plain English."

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Module 1 · Write Faster (Days 1–3)

Day 1Emails in seconds

Learn: A prompt with all four R-C-T-F parts beats a long rambling one.

Do: Paste this, swap in your own facts, and compare it to what you'd normally write.

Role: You are a senior site reliability engineer writing to non-technical managers.
Context: Our checkout API was unavailable for 22 minutes this morning because a TLS certificate expired. It is fixed. We are adding expiry alerts.
Task: Write a status email to the department heads.
Format: Subject line plus 3 short paragraphs, under 120 words total, calm and accountable tone, no jargon.

Save: Copy the prompt into your Playbook and replace the specifics with [brackets] to make a reusable template.

Day 2Still your own voice

Learn: Gemini sounds generic until you show it how you write.

Do: Paste 3 emails you actually sent, then run:

Here are three messages I wrote. Analyze my writing style: sentence length, tone, openings, sign-offs, words I overuse, words I never use. Output a "Voice Guide" of 8 rules I can paste into future prompts. Do not rewrite the messages.

Save: Store the Voice Guide. Start future prompts with "Follow this Voice Guide:" and paste it.

Day 3Reports that read well

Learn: Good reports lead with the answer, then the evidence.

Do: Paste rough notes from any project or incident.

Turn these notes into a one-page report using the pyramid structure: (1) the conclusion in two sentences, (2) three key findings with evidence, (3) risks, (4) decisions needed, (5) next steps with owners. Flag anything in my notes that is vague or unsupported instead of inventing details.

NOTES:
[paste notes]

Pro tip: "Flag anything vague instead of inventing details" cuts hallucinated filler dramatically. Keep that line.

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Module 2 · Fix Your Inbox (Days 4–6)

Day 4Draft the replies

Do: Paste a real email you need to answer (remove private info first).

Read this email. Give me 3 reply options: (A) short and friendly, (B) firm but polite, (C) asks one clarifying question. Each under 80 words. Follow my Voice Guide: [paste].

EMAIL:
[paste]

Day 5Summarise long threads

Do: Paste a 20+ message thread.

Summarize this thread as:
1. One-sentence TL;DR
2. Decisions made (who decided)
3. Open questions
4. Action items as a table: Owner | Task | Due date
5. Anything where people disagree
Quote nothing; paraphrase.

THREAD:
[paste]

Tip: If you've connected Gmail (see Part 2, Day 16), you can ask Gemini to summarise a thread directly from your inbox instead of pasting.

Day 6Never start blank

Do: Build a 5-template email kit in one go.

Create 5 reusable email templates with [placeholders]: (1) polite follow-up after no reply, (2) saying no to a meeting, (3) asking for a deadline extension, (4) handing off work, (5) thanking a teammate publicly. Each under 90 words. Offer a "warmer" and a "more formal" variant of each.

Save: Paste the kit in your Playbook. You'll never stare at an empty reply box again.

Make your 15 minutes a night comfortable. A laptop stand, a decent lamp, or a good keyboard makes a nightly routine easier to keep. I link a few setup picks on Shopee PH: browse the Kodexon picks here.
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Module 3 · Clean Up Data (Days 7–9)

Day 7Messy lists, sorted

Do: Paste a messy list of server names, contacts, or tasks.

Clean this list: remove duplicates (case-insensitive), trim spaces, standardize to lowercase-with-hyphens, sort alphabetically, and group by the prefix before the first hyphen. Show a count of removed duplicates at the end.

LIST:
Web-01
web-01 
DB-primary
db-Primary
api-02
Web-02
api-01

Expected: three groups (api, db, web), 5 unique items, 2 duplicates removed. If Gemini's count differs, that's your first lesson: always sanity-check counts.

Day 8Tables built for you

Do: Turn unstructured text into a table.

Convert these deployment notes into a table with columns: Date | Service | Version | Result | Owner. If a field is missing write "unknown", do not guess.

NOTES:
Mon: payments went to v2.4.1, all fine, Ana did it. Tuesday we rolled back search from 3.0.0 to 2.9.8 after errors (Raj). Wed: auth v1.12 deployed OK.

Then ask: "Export this as CSV." Paste it into Google Sheets.

Day 9Errors found early

Do: Use Gemini as a reviewer, not just a writer.

Audit this CSV before I import it. List: duplicate rows, missing values, impossible values (negative prices, future dates), inconsistent formats, and suspicious outliers. Do not fix anything yet. Give a numbered issue list with row references, then propose fixes.

Sanitize first. Before pasting real data, replace names, emails and IDs with placeholders. A 30-second find-and-replace protects you and your customers.

Part 1 checkpoint (answer in your Playbook)

1. What do the letters R-C-T-F stand for?
2. Which one-line instruction reduces invented details?
3. Name 3 things you must never paste into a consumer AI tool.
4. Why should you sanity-check counts and totals?

If you can answer all four, you're ready for Part 2.

← Course OverviewPart 2: Build, Research, Connect →

Tools and menus change often. If a button name differs from what you see, look for the closest equivalent; the prompts work regardless.