Daily Briefing

A briefing your business actually runs on.

By the end of this setup you'll have an automation that drafts an email to yourself every morning before you wake up — your calendar, your gaps, who to call in them, and the only emails worth your attention.

Step 1. Pre-flight checklist

Confirm each of these before you go further. Connectors live in Claude Settings → Connectors, and each one walks you through Google's or Microsoft's permission screen.

Step 2. Install the skill

The skill is the engine. It knows how to assemble the briefing, format it as an email and create the draft. Without it, every morning would look different; with it, you get the same clean format every day.

1. Get the skill file from the email above. Keep it zipped — Claude reads it directly.
2. In Claude Desktop, click Customize in the left sidebar, then Skills.
3. Click the + at the top of the Skills panel and upload the zip as-is.
4. Find it in the list and make sure the toggle is on. If it's off, the skill won't activate when the task runs.

Step 3. Tell it who you are

Your Brain Doc is what makes the briefing yours. The skill reads it every morning to know who you are, what matters, and how you like to work. Start with the basics:

• Your name — how the briefing greets you, and what signs it.
• The email address where the draft gets created. It must be the same account you connected to Claude.
• Brokerage and phone for the signature.
• Your time zone, and the time you want it drafted — pick something before you usually check your phone.

Step 4. Your ideal week

Your ideal week is the structure of a great week if everything went right. The briefing compares your actual day against it and flags what's missing.

• Your weekday structure, block by block. Paste in your coaching notes if you have them.
• Days you take off, so the briefing doesn't pressure you to fill them.
• Protected personal time — family dinner, bedtime, date night. No coaching suggestions land in those windows.

Step 5. Your calendars and your gap coaching

When there's a gap on the calendar, the briefing suggests how to spend it. Pick the kinds of work that matter most and it rotates through them, so you're not told to “make calls” every single morning.

It reads every calendar you've connected — your primary work calendar plus any spouse, family, team or listing calendars. Make sure those are added in your calendar account before the briefing runs. Events on personal calendars are visible but never treated as gap time: protected time stays protected.

Pick two to five coaching categories

• Past client check-ins — sphere calls and “haven't talked in a while” outreach.
• Active buyer and seller follow-ups — the people in your pipeline right now.
• Power Hour prospecting — cold outreach, FSBOs, expireds.
• Database touches — birthdays, home anniversaries.
• CMA and listing prep — price positioning, market updates for active listings.
• Open house prep and promotion.
• Lead intake review — new leads from your sources and web enquiries.

Then set how often past clients should hear from you — every 30, 60 or 90 days — and the briefing reminds you when sphere check-ins come due.

Step 6. What matters in your inbox

The briefing surfaces the five to seven emails worth your attention this morning. To filter that down from a noisy inbox it needs to know who and what matters.

Start from the real-estate defaults and add anything specific to your business or a live transaction: offer, counter, escrow, inspection, closing, contingency, appraisal, addendum, termination, urgent, EMD, earnest money, deadline.

Last choice: the tone. Direct and operational reads like a dispatch — just the facts. Coaching voice pairs the facts with light accountability nudges.

Step 7. Wire it up in Cowork

Your answers become a Brain Doc that lives in the project's instructions. Paste the block below, filling in your own answers.

DAILY BRIEFING — BRAIN DOC

WHO I AM
- Name: [first] [last]
- Draft the briefing into: [the email account connected to Claude]
- Brokerage: [name] · Phone: [number]
- Time zone: [zone] · Draft it at: [time]

MY IDEAL WEEK
[block by block — or start from the default and adjust]
- Days off: [days]
- Protected personal time, never suggest work here: [windows]

GAP COACHING — rotate through these
[pick 2–5: past-client check-ins · active buyer/seller follow-ups · Power Hour
 prospecting · database touches · CMA and listing prep · open house prep ·
 lead intake review]
- Past clients should hear from me every [30 / 60 / 90] days.

MY INBOX
- Surface what Gmail marks Important, or what Outlook puts in Focused.
- Flag anything containing: offer, counter, escrow, inspection, closing,
  contingency, appraisal, addendum, termination, urgent, EMD, earnest money,
  deadline, [your own terms]
- Tone: [direct and operational / coaching voice]

EVERY BRIEFING INCLUDES
- Today's calendar and any conflicts
- Gap windows, each with one coaching suggestion
- The 5–7 emails worth handling this morning
- What's missing from my ideal week

RULES
- Draft only. Never send.
- Read every connected calendar, but never treat protected time as gap time.

Create the project — in Cowork, not Chat

A project built on the Chat side can't be linked to a scheduled task. Cowork is where automated projects live.

1. In Claude Desktop, open Cowork.
2. Click Projects, then + New Project. This is Cowork's own Projects section, distinct from the one in regular Chat.
3. Name it Daily Briefing — your scheduled task will reference this name.
4. Paste your Brain Doc into the Instructions field. That's the only field you need besides the name.
5. Confirm your email and calendar connectors are enabled, then click Create.

Test it by hand before you schedule anything

Run my daily briefing for today.

Wait about a minute, then check your drafts folder. You should see “Daily Briefing” with today's date. Read it the way you'd read it at 6am: does it cover your day correctly? If the tone is off, a section is missing, or it pulled the wrong calendar, edit the Brain Doc in the project's instructions and run it again.

Step 8. Schedule the daily run

1. In Cowork, click Scheduled, then + New Task.
2. Name it Daily Briefing, the same as the project.
3. Paste the description below — short and direct, because the skill handles the logic.
4. Under Work in a project, select Daily Briefing, so the task has your Brain Doc and connectors when it runs.
5. Change the Ask setting to Act without asking, or Cowork pauses for approval at each step and the whole point is lost.
6. Set the frequency to Daily, pick your time, and save.

Summarize my calendar and inbox for the day.

Use my daily briefing skill.

If you leave your desktop on overnight, set it early so the briefing is ready before you wake. If you shut down at night, set it for shortly after you normally turn the machine on. Weekdays only or every day, your call.