Every weekday at half six a page is waiting. It has read your calendar, your inbox and your task list, and it has an opinion about what actually matters today.
The briefing reads your task list, and the task list comes from the self-keeping work log. Set that up first, run it for a week, then add the briefing on top. Doing it the other way round gives you a briefing with an empty middle.
This is what lands. Every section below is generated, and the whole thing takes about thirty seconds to read.
Carrying into today: the Harper pricing, and the supplier quote you have been waiting on since the 4th.
Two short meetings and a clear middle. The afternoon is the only block long enough for the pricing.
Two things need you.
The rest is newsletters.
Your weekly invoice run has not fired since 14 July, 29 days ago. Nothing has been raised in that time. Your support inbox is also empty, but the contact form has been returning an error since Tuesday, so that is a fault rather than a quiet week.
Two short meetings and one real deadline. The pricing is the only thing here that is finishable today, and it has a client waiting on it. The four overdue tasks have been overdue for weeks and will survive another day. Reply to Jo before 09:30 so it stops sitting.
They are in the prompt, and they are the first thing people delete.
Say whether the work is done or the thing feeding it has died. An empty support inbox and a broken contact form look the same from the outside.
"Enquiries up 300%" is four people, from one. It says the raw number every time, so you never act on a trend that is not there.
Anything that used to happen and has stopped. A report, a payment run, a cron, a person who always replied. Nobody notices absence on their own.
Mine watches a client service desk, a queue of approved changes that have not shipped, and my own website analytics. Yours will be different. The pack includes a short guide to working out what yours are, which comes down to one question: what do you check manually, and forget to?
Three sections is plenty. Ten and you stop reading it.
Assuming the work log is already running. The prompt is below, ready to copy.
One scheduled task, one prompt. Copy it, paste it, set it to weekdays.
Write my daily briefing and post it as a new page in Notion. Work through every step in order. Replace anything in [SQUARE BRACKETS] before you save this. Do not ask me anything. Nobody is there to answer. If a source is unavailable, say so in that section, say for how many days if you can tell, and carry on with the rest. 1. DATES Work out today's date and yesterday's date in [MY TIMEZONE]. Use today's date for the page title and for every date filter below. 2. READ STREAK Open the Notion page [DAILY BRIEFINGS PAGE] and list its recent child pages. Starting from yesterday and working backwards, open each day's page and check the read checkbox: "- [x]" is read, "- [ ]" is unread. Count consecutive read days, stopping at the first unread or missing day. Look back 30 days at most. Today does not count yet. 3. YESTERDAY Read yesterday's calendar (00:00 to 23:59) and yesterday's email. Ignore noise: verification codes, magic links, security notices, delivery reports, newsletters, receipts, marketing. Write three or four bullets on what actually happened. If yesterday was empty, say so in one line rather than padding it. Finish with "Carrying into today", naming anything still unresolved. 4. TODAY Read today's calendar, 00:00 to 23:59, oldest first. Convert every time to [MY TIMEZONE]. For each event give the time range, the title, the organiser, the attendees and the join link. Then one line on what shape the day actually is. Not a restatement of the list. If it is one call and one deadline, say that. 5. EMAIL Read anything that arrived since yesterday morning. Include only what genuinely needs me: something waiting on my reply, something with a deadline, something that changes a decision. Say how many days anything has been sitting unanswered. Do not repeat what you already covered in Yesterday. If there is nothing, write "Nothing overnight" and move on. 6. TASKS Read [MY TASK DATABASE]. Give me three groups: - Due today. Mark the single most important one. - Overdue, each with the exact number of days it is over. - Anything in progress, with how long it has been sitting untouched. No more than ten items. If there are more, say how many are hidden. 7. [MY OWN SECTIONS] Add one block per thing you want watched. Use this shape: SECTION NAME Read [the exact tool, page, database or query]. Report [the specific things you want]. Then tell me [the judgement you want drawn]. If it is unavailable, say "[SECTION] data unavailable this morning", say how many days it has been unavailable, and continue. If anything needs a decision from me, end the section with a line starting "To action:" telling me exactly what to do and where. 8. WHAT HAS GONE QUIET Anything that used to happen regularly and has not happened lately. A scheduled job, a report, a payment run, a recurring meeting, a person who always replied and has not. Say when it last ran and how long ago that was. If a queue, inbox or list is empty, work out whether it is empty because the work is done or because the thing feeding it has stopped, and say which. Those are opposite situations and they look identical. This section matters more than any other. Do not skip it. 9. THE SHAPE OF TODAY Two or three sentences of judgement, and nothing else. Name the one thing that is realistically finishable today, and why. Name what can wait. If the day is overloaded, say so and tell me what to drop. 10. POST IT Create a new child page under [DAILY BRIEFINGS PAGE], titled with today's date, for example "Tuesday, 12 August 2026". The page must begin with exactly these two lines: - [ ] I read today's briefing **Read streak:** N days (If N is 0, write "**Read streak:** 0 days, let's start one today") Then the sections above as headings, in order. Finish with one small italic line naming every source you read and anything that was unavailable. HOW TO WRITE IT Interpret, do not list. A dashboard shows numbers. You tell me what they mean. Caveat small numbers out loud, everywhere, not just where it is obvious. Up 300% off a base of one is one. Never let me draw a conclusion the data cannot carry. Count the days. "Overdue" is weak. "Three days over" is a fact I act on. Same for anything sitting still. Say when nothing happened. An honest empty section builds more trust than a padded one. Never invent activity to fill a heading. Be short. Bold the words that carry the meaning, so the page can be skimmed in thirty seconds and read properly in three minutes. Write it to me, not about me. Plain sentences, second person, no corporate register. WHAT YOU MAY DO Read-only queries, creating the one Notion page, and nothing else. Do not send email, do not message anyone, do not change any record, and do not trigger any other automation, even if a section looks like it wants you to.
Step 7 is where it becomes yours. The template inside it is the shape every custom section should take: name the source exactly, say what to report, say what judgement you want, and say what to do when it is missing.
Twenty minutes. We connect it, write your first two custom sections, and run it live so you leave with a briefing rather than a prompt.
No recording. No follow-up sequence.
The prompt, the setup guide, and the guide to building your own sections. No email, no form, no sequence afterwards.
Four files · 14 KB · Claude Cowork
Once a month, on automation and VAs, and why they work. Every issue comes with a new free resource. You never need the list to get them. Everything here stays free and ungated. The newsletter is just how you hear about the next one.
The work log writes the record. The briefing reads it back to you. Build them in that order.
Files your work, your calls and your notes on a schedule, and builds your to-do list from the record. The briefing's tasks section reads from it.
Reads everything each morning and tells you what it means. Works on calendar and email alone if you have not built the log.