Two hours of my working day used to disappear into tabs: inbox, calendar, a news search, three Slack leftovers, the thing I promised someone yesterday. The brief exists so I sit down already knowing what needs a human.

This is not a chatbot you open and prompt. It is a scheduled job. If you have to remember to run it, it will die in three weeks.

What "done" looks like

By 6:30am I want one page with:

  • Meetings today, with the one decision each meeting is actually for
  • Emails that need me (not the ones that need a polite delay)
  • Three priorities inherited from yesterday's NOW.md
  • Anything that broke overnight in the systems I own
  • One sentence on the external world only if it changes a decision I make this week

If it doesn't fit on a phone screen, it is a report, not a brief. Cut it.

Architecture that survives real use

  1. Sources: Gmail (or Outlook), Calendar, a folder of notes, optionally a web search for a short list of topics.
  2. Job: a scheduled Claude task, an n8n workflow, or a Claude Code cron. Pick one. Don't build two.
  3. Output: a single Notion page, a Google Doc, or an email to yourself. I use a Notion page because I can check boxes on it.
  4. Guardrail: the job may draft. It may not send mail to other people.

The prompt that actually runs

You are assembling my daily brief. Timezone: America/Chicago.
Read: calendar for today and tomorrow, unread / flagged email, NOW.md.
Produce exactly these sections:
1. TODAY — meetings as a table: time, who, the decision I owe.
2. NEEDS ME — max 7 emails. For each: one-line context, suggested reply in my voice (under 80 words), or DELEGATE with a name.
3. IGNORE — count only. Do not list them.
4. PRIORITIES — copy from NOW.md. If a meeting doesn't serve one, say so.
5. RISKS — only if a source supports it. No vibes.
Never contact anyone. Never mark email read.
If a connector failed, say which one and continue with the rest.

Connectors vs automation

Connecting Gmail is access. Access is not a workflow. The scheduled task is the workflow. If you stop after the connector, you have built a more expensive search box.

In Claude: connect Gmail and Calendar, then create a scheduled task with the prompt above, daily, before you wake up. In n8n: Calendar node + Gmail node → LLM node with the same prompt → Notion or Gmail-to-self.

The first week

Days 1–2: the brief will be too long. Cut sections. Days 3–4: it will miss a meeting type (recurring 1:1s, interviews). Add one line to the prompt. Day 5: it will try to be clever about the news. Remove the news section if it isn't changing a decision. By day 7 you should dread opening the raw inbox more than you dread the brief. If you don't, the brief is wrong — not you.

Start with calendar + inbox only. Live sources come later. A brief that fails because a scraper broke is worse than a brief that is slightly incomplete.

Once this is boring, you are ready for agents. Boring is the goal.