Build your own small tools.

What it does: turns five minutes of unstructured talking into a clean note — what moved, what's stuck, what needs you first thing. You stop starting each morning by remembering.

1. At the end of the day, talk for two or three minutes into voice-to-text. Don't organize it. Ramble.
2. Paste the mess into your assistant with the prompt below.
3. Keep the output in one running file — one heading per day.
4. Tomorrow, paste yesterday's note back in and ask: "what did I say I'd do that I haven't?"

Below is an unstructured end-of-day dump from my work. Turn it into a short handoff note with exactly four sections:

MOVED — what actually progressed today
STUCK — what is blocked, and on whom or what
TOMORROW, FIRST — the two or three things that must happen first, in order
WATCH — anything that smells like it will become a problem

Rules: use my own words where you can. Do not invent anything I did not say. If something is ambiguous, put it under WATCH with a question mark rather than guessing.

DUMP:
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What it does: separates the messages that need you from the ones that need a reply. Most inboxes are 80% the second kind, and that 80% is what eats the morning.

1. Copy the subject lines and first lines of everything unread into one block.
2. Run the prompt. You'll get three buckets back.
3. Handle the "needs you" bucket yourself, properly, with a clear head.
4. For the routine bucket, paste each one in and ask for a draft in your voice — then read it, fix it, send it. Never send unread.

Here is a list of unread messages (subject + opening line). Sort every item into exactly one bucket:

NEEDS ME — requires my judgment, a decision, a relationship, or money
ROUTINE — a reply is needed but the answer is predictable
NOISE — no reply needed; note it and move on

For each NEEDS ME item, add one line: what decision is actually being asked of me.
Do not draft anything yet. Do not guess at context you were not given.

MESSAGES:
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What it does: turns a document you'd skim into one you actually understand, in less time. Works on anything dense: agreements, statements, policies, long reports, technical quotes.

1. Paste or upload the document.
2. Run the four questions below — they work on almost any document type.
3. Then ask your own real question, the one you opened the file for.
4. Verify anything that matters against the document itself. The answer tells you where to look; it isn't the source of truth.

Read the attached document and answer these four questions, quoting the exact line you got each answer from:

1. What am I agreeing to or being told, in plain language, in under 100 words?
2. What are the dates, amounts and deadlines? List every one.
3. What is unusual here compared to a standard version of this kind of document?
4. What would cost me money or time if I missed it?

If the document does not answer one of these, say "not stated" — do not infer.

What it does: turns scattered history — the email thread, your notes, the last invoice — into a single page you can read in the two minutes before a call. This is the single highest-return thirty seconds of prep available to anyone.

1. Gather whatever you have on the other party: the thread, past notes, numbers.
2. Run the prompt.
3. Add one line yourself: what you want out of the conversation. That part is never the machine's job.

From the material below, write me a ten-line pre-call brief:

- Who they are and our history in two lines
- The last three things that happened between us, with dates
- Anything unresolved or promised and not delivered — by either side
- Two questions I should ask
- One thing likely to come up that I should have an answer ready for

Only use what is in the material. Mark anything you are unsure about with [check].

MATERIAL:
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What it does: this is the highest-leverage habit on this page. Keep a one-line log of questions people ask you. At the end of the week, the repeats tell you exactly what to write down — and what to build next.

1. All week, when someone asks you something, drop the question into a note. One line. No formatting.
2. Friday, paste the list into the prompt.
3. Write a short answer to the top repeat — once, properly — and put it where people can find it.
4. Next week, that question stops arriving. Repeat until your week is quiet.

Here is a raw list of questions people asked me this week.

1. Group them by what they are really asking about, even when worded differently.
2. Rank the groups by how often they came up.
3. For the top three, tell me what document or decision is missing that would stop the question from being asked at all.

A recurring question is a gap in the procedure, not a gap in the person — treat it that way.

QUESTIONS:
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What it does: converts one undocumented process per week into something written, using conversation instead of a blank template. The machine interviews you — that's the trick. Answering questions is far easier than facing an empty page.

1. Pick the process you'd most hate to explain if you were off sick.
2. Run the prompt and answer the questions out loud into voice-to-text.
3. Ask for the result as a numbered procedure with the exceptions listed separately.
4. File it. Next week, the next process.

You are going to interview me about one process in my work so it can be written down properly.

Ask me ONE question at a time, and wait for my answer before the next. Cover: what triggers it, every step in order, who owns each step, what systems are touched, what the handoffs are, what usually goes wrong, and what the exceptions are.

Keep going until you could hand this to a new person. Then write it up as a numbered procedure, with a separate section for exceptions and one for "what to do when it goes wrong."

The process is: [name it]

What it does: extracts your own voice and structure from work you already did, instead of adopting somebody else's template. The output sounds like you because it came from you.

1. Find four or five examples of the same kind of message you send often — quotes, follow-ups, updates, rejections.
2. Run the prompt.
3. Save the template with its variables marked. Reuse, adjust, done.

Below are several messages I have written for the same purpose.

1. Identify the structure they share — the moves I make, in order.
2. Note the tone: sentence length, formality, how I open and close.
3. Produce one reusable template that matches how I actually write, with [VARIABLES] marked clearly.
4. Tell me which of my examples was strongest and why.

Do not make it more formal or more polished than my originals. Match me.

EXAMPLES:
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What it does: uses your daily handoff notes as raw material, so the review costs almost nothing to produce. The value is in the third question — the one about what keeps reappearing.

1. Paste the week's daily notes in together.
2. Run the prompt.
3. Act on exactly one thing from the output. One. Ten weeks of one thing beats a list you never touch.

These are my daily notes from one week. Give me a short, honest review:

1. What actually moved forward, as opposed to what stayed busy?
2. What did I say I'd do and not do — and does that pattern repeat?
3. What appears in more than two days' notes? That thing is either important or unresolved. Which is it?
4. If I could only fix one thing next week, what should it be?

Be direct. Do not soften it and do not congratulate me.

NOTES:
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What it does: finds the repeats and outliers hiding across a month of invoices, orders, tickets or jobs. This is the thing humans genuinely cannot do by eye, because the pattern only exists in aggregate.

1. Export the month to a spreadsheet — whatever you already have is fine, it does not need to be clean.
2. Upload it and run the prompt.
3. Verify every flagged item against the original record before you act. Every one.

Attached is one month of records. Analyse at line level and report:

1. Anything that looks like a duplicate — same item, same party, close dates
2. Prices or amounts that differ from the pattern for that item or party by more than 20%
3. Anything that repeats more often than it should for its type
4. The five largest items, and whether each looks normal for its category

For every flag: show me the exact rows and say what made it suspicious. Where you are unsure, say so — I would rather check ten than miss one. Do not calculate totals I did not ask for.

What it does: stops you guessing at what to build next. You don't choose the project — the month chooses it for you, and repetition is the only vote that counts.

1. Pull together the month's daily notes, sent items, and calendar.
2. Run the prompt.
3. Take the top item and build a small tool for it — usually just a saved prompt.
4. Next month, it shouldn't be on the list. If it is, your tool didn't work; find out why.

From the material below, list every task or request that happened four or more times last month.

For each one give me:
- roughly how often it occurred
- how long it takes each time, if you can tell
- whether the steps are the same every time or vary
- whether it needs judgment, or just needs doing

Then rank them by "same steps every time × happens most often" — that ranking is my build list. Explain the top choice in two lines.

MATERIAL:
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What it does: keeps the toolkit sharp instead of sprawling. Most people's prompt collections die of clutter, not of failure — they simply get too messy to open.

1. Open the file. Delete anything you haven't used in two months. Be ruthless.
2. For the ones you use constantly, run the prompt below to tighten them.
3. Add one line to each: what it's for, and when it fails.
4. Keep it in plain text somewhere you'll actually find it. Not in a chat history.

Here is a prompt I use regularly. Improve it without changing what it does:

1. Remove anything vague that could be read two ways
2. Add explicit instructions about what to do when information is missing
3. Make the output format unambiguous
4. Tell me the most likely way this prompt gives me a wrong answer, and add one line that guards against it

Give me the rewritten prompt, then a two-line note on what you changed and why.

PROMPT:
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