This is a basic system instruction that you’ll want to stick into your Claude Project’s “system instructions” area. Play around with it and customize it to your need.
## System Instructions for Personal Assistant
**Core Purpose**: Serve as a personal assistant that learns from email, calendar, and knowledge documents to make the user's life smoother and better.
**Communication Style**:
- Maintain a friendly but professional tone
- Be conversational without being overly casual
- Use clear, concise language
**Calendar Intelligence**:
- When asked about calendar or daily brief, always access and review Google Calendar
- Suggest meeting times that respect these deep work blocks
- Account for buffer time when travel/location changes are involved between events
- Learn patterns in scheduling preferences over time
When asked for a "calendar review" or “daily brief”:
1. Access Google Calendar
2. Provide a Daily Narrative (Start with this section):
* Begin with a 2-3 sentence overview that captures the flow and energy demands of the day
* Provide practical suggestions for managing energy levels based on the day's schedule
* Highlight key transition points or challenging periods that require attention
3. Provide today's complete schedule ONLY
4. Prioritize highlighting:
- Family and personal commitments found on my personal gmail, family travel, and calendar
- Note any upcoming birthdays or anniversaries
- Non-recurring events (unique meetings or events not from previous week)
- Any unusual or special appointments
5. Flag these unique events as noteworthy to help me prepare
**Email & Relationship Management**:
- Track key relationships and communication patterns from Gmail
- Reference the knowledge document (Google Doc) for context about people and relationships
- Update understanding as new information becomes available
- Maintain awareness of important contacts and their roles
**General Behavior**:
- Proactively offer relevant information when it could be helpful
- Ask for clarification when needed rather than making assumptions
- Focus on being genuinely useful rather than just responding to queries
- Learn from interactions to improve assistance over time
The beauty of a Claude Project is it can read from your Google Docs directly. Since it’s easy to add/edit your Google Docs, this is a very low friction way to evolve and load andcontext into your Personal Assistant. I had two key documents:
Admin Tasks List - This is a Google Doc for basic administrative tasks that I want Claude, using BrowserMCP, to accomplish for me (e.g. like ordering lunch per my demo).
Example:
To order lunch, use BrowserMCP to
* Navigate to https://www.toasttab.com/[pick your restaurant]
* Set the pick up time to the time specified, if there wasn’t a time specified, ask first
* If the order is the usual, put the miso glazed salmon with white rice in the checkout
* Add anything else the instruction states
* Go to the checkout page and PAUSE
Knowledge “Database” - This is a Google Doc that has a running list of bulleted facts about things thtat I want my assistant to know. It captures key points I want to retain after meeting up with someone, or just random ideas or lessons I have along the way. I add to the document via a simple capture via my phone using SuperWhisper, which I then email directly to a val.town email assistant that adds my points to the google doc. I’ll write a separate post on that when I have time, but it’s been a very low friction way to add knowledge to my assistant.
Example:
2025-06-28 - vibecamp
* Attended VibeCamp at BetaWorks
* Cool early NYC tech vibes
This should get you pretty far in having a personal assistant environment to play with. Make it your Personal CRM, have it help you with repetitive tasks like ordering lunch, or just a very handy “daily brief” update when you’re starting your day.
Since Claude has voice mode on mobile, this is also fantastic way to retrieve your personal knowledge. Note that browserMCP (like all MCPs) only works on Claude Desktop, so those features are the only things you can’t do.
If you found this useful or have questions as you’re setting this up, drop me an email and let me know. You can reach me at my first name dot last name @ hey.com
]]>On the generous end, media informs. On the nefarious end, it programs.
It’s why influential figures throughout history sought to own newspapers and media empires. The line between public service and public programming is blurry at best.
In this world of information abundance (or overload), moderating consumption and exercising independent critical thinking is even more important if one hopes to avoid being scripted.
One of the best defenses against being media scripted is to be aware of the programming tactics. Knowing what a manipulation tactic looks like minimizes its power. Much like how being aware of cognitive biases allow us to course correct against our own biases, pre-innoculation is a powerful tool worth sharing with friends, family, and kids.
The short series Prebunking Manipulation Techniques is amongst the best I’ve found in describing how these things work. It takes just a few minutes to grasp how media takes advantage of these tools and once you see it, you can identify it everywhere. Here are a few of to start with:
The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing.
This sentence has stayed with me since.
Progress toward what’s truly important can only be made when it is your most important thing.
]]>This is possible today thanks to AI. I’ve been using this method quickly check on my food options. After using it for awhile, it’s helped me learn what to include, exclude, and moderate in my diet.
Here’s how you can set up your own AI nutritionist. I use Perplexity but you can mirror this method in other AI apps. In Perplexity, under Settings > Profile, under the Introduce Yourself section, you can add any context and instructions you’d like. It’s here I added the following instruction for Perplexity:
When I ask the foodie a question, you become an expert nutritionist who can advise me based on my personal dietary needs. You are advising me based on the following factors about my health and preferences: [list any medical conditions, medications, dietary restrictions, and preferences. For example: "I am aiming to lower my cholesterol and limit my sodium in take. I also want more calcium rich foods and avoid simple carbs."] Your response should outline which aspects of my health conditions are impacted by the foods I ask about.
As with all things AI, the more context you feed it, the better the answers. So don’t hold back when creating your personal prompt!
Now whenever I have a question about food, I ask the nutritionist in Perplexity. “Hey Foodie, is bison good for me?”
Bonus: if you have an iPhone with the action button, you can map Perplexity to it so you are one button away from answers to your nutrition questions.
]]>The human brains we started with are suddenly coping with knowing just about everything happening anywhere instantly. It’s too much. Breaking news breaks our attention.
Just because something is available 24/7 doesn’t mean we have to embrace it.
For now, a good moderate solution on iOS is Apple News. It’s just enough news. The app shows the top five stories. If something catches my eye, I’ll dig in, but if not, I move on. I check the headlines twice a day and I am informed of all major news. This experience beats the constant refresh of social media or traditional news that thrive off of our easily hijacked attention. It’s a calmer way to stay informed.
]]>And I know I’ll miss the messiness of toys and the cacophony of kids at play.
The chaos comes with the package. I remind myself to embrace and cherish it.
]]>During the mid-2000s, I stopped updating my own sites and posted to services like Flickr (photos) and delicious (bookmarks) instead. This led me to create software to pull the content I shared elsewhere back into a single, published feed. I look back fondly on this era of self-publishing, and I’m glad I have this digital scrapbook to look back on.
In the 2010s, I gave up on gathering my own content. Instead I focused on posting to IG, Twitter, Tumblr. It was fun and social. And in that fog, the platforms had decisively won. The platforms had sucked up mine and most of the world’s content and attention.
But now I’m over the emphermeral aspects of social media. I want to share my learnings and experiences in a more enduring format: a personal website. I’m back to where I started and it’s a joy.
]]>