Start your day without opening your inbox.
A morning chief-of-staff system for the AI you already use. One brief, readable in 60 seconds: your schedule, the three priorities that actually matter, the handful of messages that genuinely need you, and one thing to remember. Everything else stays unread until you choose.
Whoever emailed you last decides how your day starts.
You sit down to check one thing. Twenty minutes later there are four tabs open, a Slack thread going, and you are answering someone else's priorities before you have looked at your own. You didn't check your inbox. You entered it.
Protect your focus.
Get a readout of your day, every morning, prioritized by your goals, with a quick nod to urgent matters that need your attention. Address what you need to without getting drawn in, and lean into your day's priorities.
Six jobs, one screen, 60 seconds of reading.
An instruction system your AI runs every morning. No additional subscriptions or additional apps. Let them work for you. It runs where you already work, connected to your tools or from a 90-second paste.
Reads your day
Today's calendar in time order, with a flag on back-to-back meetings before they ambush you.
Ranks what matters
Top 3 priorities by a real lens: revenue generating tasks first, hard deadlines second, obstacles to your goals third.
Triages your messages
From senders and subject lines alone, the max 5 emails and mentions that need you today. It never opens the bodies.
Carries yesterday forward
What didn't get done is still on the board, with a call: do first, reschedule, or drop. A heads up and a recommendation.
Watches for drift
The inbox creeping past 30 unread, the project that hasn't moved in 9 days. Named, with one next move attached.
Protects you
Optional checks a good chief of staff would run: movement on the calendar, an end-of-day shutdown block, travel days handled as travel days.
The ranking is the product.
Top 3 Priorities
- Meridian logo presentation [$ client]
Client review is tomorrow 10am; today's morning block is the only runway left. - Coastal Goods proposal [$ pipeline]
They asked for it "this week," and Thursday and Friday are already spoken for. - Hartwell kickoff prep
15 minutes before the 11:00 call to reread their intake note, so the kickoff sets the tone.
One Thing to Remember
Excerpt from the included example brief (fictional composite). Your brief also carries the schedule table, carryovers, drift watch, and the messages that need a reply.
The system, not just a prompt.
A prompt asks your AI to summarize your day. A system tells it what to protect, how to rank, what counts as noise, and what to do when something is quietly sliding.
The chief-of-staff instructions
The full brief system: the 5-part priority lens, triage rules, drift thresholds, and the no-guilt framing that keeps you reading it.
Your context layer
A one-time, fill-in template: your hours, your tools, what counts as money work, which protections you want on.
The locked brief format
Under 30 lines, hard-capped. Schedule, Top 3 with reasons, carryovers, drift watch, needs-a-reply, one thing to remember.
Three install paths
Step-by-step guides for Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini, each with the way to schedule it so the brief is waiting at 8am.
Tool wiring
Notion task databases, Slack and Teams triage, connected calendar and email, and a 90-second paste routine that needs none of them.
Example + quick-start
A complete example brief to calibrate on, plus the paste-your-day prompt that gets your first brief in 3 minutes, before any setup.
Daily planning apps run $17 to $49 a month. The job at the center of them, deciding what today is about before the inbox decides for you, is a judgment task the AI you already pay for can run every morning. The instructions are free.
Free download · updates included · works with Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini
Before you ask.
Can't my AI already summarize my day?
It can, and summarizing is the easy part. The job is judgment: which three items matter most, which messages genuinely need you, what is quietly drifting, and what to protect when the day runs over. This system is that judgment written down, once, properly, so every morning is a two-word request.
Do I have to connect my email?
No. Paste mode is the baseline: 90 seconds of copying event titles, your task list, and unread subject lines. The brief runs on that metadata alone, and it never needed the bodies of your emails. Connections are an upgrade for zero-paste mornings, not a requirement.
Which AI do I need?
Any current Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini plan. Install guides for all three are included, each with its scheduling path so the brief can be waiting at 8am. If you live in Google Workspace, Gemini often has calendar and Gmail access with no extra wiring.
Can it handle Slack?
Two honest ways. Connected, where your platform supports a Slack connection, it scans your unread DMs and mentions. Everywhere else, a 20-second glance at your sidebar badges, pasted, is enough for the brief to tell you who actually needs a reply. Either way, the goal is the same: you stay out of Slack until you choose to go in.
I don't use a task manager.
Type the 3 to 6 things on your mind into the morning run. That is a valid task list, and the priority lens ranks it the same way. If your tasks live in Notion, Todoist, or anywhere else, the tool wiring guide covers pointing the agent at them.
Is this a subscription?
No. It's a free download, updates included. The only subscription involved is the AI plan you already pay for.
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