Build Your Own Morning Briefing

Rung 1: the ten-minute version

In ChatGPT, open Scheduled (chatgpt.com/scheduled), paste this into the "Schedule a task" box, fill in the brackets, and send it. ChatGPT sets up the weekday schedule from your words:

Save it, then leave it alone for a week. Don't tune it yet. Just see what a week of it feels like before you touch anything.

What rung 1 can't see: your calendar or your files. It only knows what you told it, which is why it's generic. On a free ChatGPT plan, the task runs in a morning window instead of at an exact time. If you want today's meetings in the brief, paste your calendar into a regular chat with the same prompt below it.

Rung 2: make it about your work

A generic brief goes stale fast, not because the AI is bad, but because it's never seen your day. Rung 2 fixes that with Claude's built-in Daily briefing template, on any paid Claude plan.

1. In Claude, open Scheduled in the left sidebar, then pick Daily briefing under Templates.
2. Answer Claude's setup question (it asked for my time zone), check the schedule says every weekday, and click Schedule.
3. If your calendar and email aren't connected yet, connect them. Claude suggests connectors right after you schedule (Google Calendar and Gmail, or Microsoft 365, plus Slack).

It runs on Claude's servers, so it works even when your computer is asleep. The brief waits in Claude, with a push notification when it's ready. It doesn't email you.

Want it to know your priorities too? Open the task, choose Edit, and paste one page with three headings into its instructions:

Only connect accounts you're allowed to use with AI. For a work calendar or inbox, check your company's policy first.

Rung 3: the fully custom version

This is the one I run, built with Claude Code on my Mac. It's not one tool, it's three parts wired together:

• Something that wakes the machine on a schedule (a built-in OS setting, not an app).
• An AI agent that's allowed to read your files, pointed at instructions to act as your chief of staff and write the brief.
• A step that emails you the result, so it's waiting when you wake up.

This rung is a real build, not a ten-minute setup, and it's genuinely optional. Most people get most of the value from rung 1 or rung 2. Move up only if you need it to read your own files or follow your exact format.

Build the alarm before you build the feature. Whatever your version is, the first thing you add is: email me when this breaks. A quiet failure looks exactly like everything being fine, and the only way to catch one is to have something that shouts.