Two Prompts and a Text File

A writer shares two simple AI prompts that use calendar, messages, and notes to create a daily briefing and end-of-day journal, enabling a continuous context loop without complex systems.

Just a quickie based on a few chats I’ve had recently. I get asked about how I use AI day-to-day for “non-dev work” fairly regularly, and the same thing happens almost every time: I start explaining the stuff I think is cool, like agent personas, layered memory files, deterministic sync scripts - and eyes usually glaze over. But if I mention that my AI briefs me on my day every morning, then I get some variation of “Oh wow. That’s clever ” 🤖 I’ve written before about my AI context system https://curlewis.co.nz/posts/heres-my-ai-context-system/ , but that public repo of mine is horribly out of date compared to my in-use system, which has continued to grow and evolve. To the point that it’s quite difficult to just give to someone and have them quickly see the value without a bunch of effort on their part. There are now almost too many “systems” and semi-dodgy-sounding services available. So I wanted to give 2 very simple, very practical examples of prompts many of you could use today… If your work gives you access to an AI that can see your calendar and ideally your messages Slack and email being the most common these days you can have both running in minutes. Bonus points if it can read and write files on your local filesystem or Google Drive, etc . Every morning, mine reads my calendar, then digs through recent notes I use markdown files via Obsidian and relevant messages/emails for each meeting: what we covered last time, anything I said I’d do and haven’t. It skims what came in overnight and pulls out a handful of things that need my attention. Then it checks yesterday’s end-of-day note for loose ends. The simple version, which you can paste in more or less verbatim: Look at my calendar for today, ignoring focus blocks and anything with just me in it. For each real meeting, check my recent Slack messages, emails and notes involving those people: what we covered last time, and anything I said I’d do that’s still open. Then skim my messages & emails since yesterday evening and give me at most five things that need my attention, starting with decisions or asks aimed directly at me. If I wrote an end-of-day note yesterday, only re-raise items from it that are still unresolved. Keep the whole thing under a page. Save that as a snippet/skill, or if your tool supports scheduled prompts, have it waiting for you when you sit down. Two minutes to read, and if you walk into a meeting that day even just slightly better prepared, it was worth the effort. This one is even lazier, which suits me. At the end of the day the AI asks me one question - how was the day overall, what’s unresolved or nagging? I ramble/rant/brag at it for a minute, and it turns that into something sensical. No forms or templates I’ll abandon within a week I leave a trail of failed attempts at journalling in my wake . Ask me how today went overall, and what’s unresolved or nagging heading into tomorrow. Then compare my answer, today’s meetings, and my messages against this morning’s briefing: what got done, what didn’t. Write a short end-of-day note with wins, decisions made, open items to carry forward, and anything tomorrow needs prep for. Save it as today’s daily note so tomorrow’s morning briefing can pick it up. If your AI can’t save files, “email it to me” or “put it in a Google doc” works exactly the same. Notice that each prompt leaves a trail for the next one, so context can flow from day to day. The evening one writes a note or sends an email; the morning one reads it and creates a new note/sends another email, and so on. That’s the entire concept of a “second brain” in a nutshell. A “paper trail” that both prompts can see. The AI then knows what you said you’d do and reminds you until you do it which it then notices, so it stops nagging you about it . People assume this takes a fancy/complex system, when all it takes is a text file or email thread, depending what your tools give you access to. From here you can tweak it to your heart’s content, which is how I went from a simple prompt to a big, complex system. It didn’t happen in a day or even a month - I made thousands of small tweaks over the past ~2 years. Some examples of things you can try: Anyway, that’s it. Start simple, and then tweak it to add value to your day, or remove the bits that don’t. Let me know how you get on. Cheers Dave