I don't know about you, but I always find starting a task to be the hardest thing. Just before finishing (deciding when something is done). Once I'm in there, I can go on for what feels like forever. But starting the task is not always easy.
It feels very lazy to admit because, these days, starting something is a matter of clicks. Opening an app. Opening an MD file in my Obsidian vault. Replying to someone whose message is already in my emails.
It's two clicks away, right?
Or, increasingly, it's just... starting a conversation in Codex. I just have to click on the freaking button to dictate and say, "Let's do that."
But I don't know. Everything gets all mumbled up there, and it becomes difficult to start.
Apparently, I'm not the only brain that has that issue.
I was watching a Sublime talk with Alex Dobrenko the other day. I talked about it already. I was completely blown away by what Alex calls his 'chief of staff'. It's a system that tells him what needs to be done, in a nice format, and it has a button that can start the thing for him. At least, that's how I understood it. Maybe I extrapolated the start the thing part a little.
My brain went: "Of coooooourse."
If I could get the AI to check my to-do list and prepare the prompt for me, I could have a button that just starts the thing. It should be doable.
Especially because I'm a VERY organized person. My Obsidian vault is the context for my AI, and it has everything in there. Everything is neatly divided into projects, so it wouldn't be complicated for the AI to find the context and set the prompt. After all, it does it already when I work with it in single conversations.
That idea grew into what I call the Morning Kickstart.
The Morning Kickstart is awesome because it didn't ask me to change my ways. I built a system especially so I don't have to change the tools I'm already using for my to-do list, my project context, my calendar, and everything else.
Don't ask me exactly how I installed those things to work with AI. I don't remember, I had already done some of that before. Something to do with CLI probably.
Now, every morning, I say to my AI: "Let's kickstart the morning." And it gives me a list of the things that need to be done, linked with the relevant context.
If I tell Reminders, "Tomorrow, remind me I need to do that on that project," the system recognizes the project name, knows which project I'm talking about, and already has the context. It prepares a little prompt that says something like: "Open this file, and then do the thing." I can modify the prompt very quickly if I need to. Then I click Start, and it starts the conversation for me.
About an hour after I begin working in the morning, everything has already been started. I've usually advanced on about 70 percent of what needed to be done in 2H or less.
Sometimes it gets more complicated because, you know, when you want to modify one little thing somewhere, it turns into this whole thing. But I have my little prompt, and that's all i needed to become a MONSTER of productivity.
Making it delightful
I divided the Morning Kickstart into three categories that match the way my work is already organized in my head.
First, there is admin and personal stuff: appointments outside work, things that need to be done around the house, or something I need to do for my parents or my family.
Then there is work stuff: things that genuinely need to be done that day, like sending cold emails to find clients, advancing a project with a deadline, or doing something for a client.
Finally, there is stuff to check: projects that aren't urgent, but that I could move forward today.
And I made it look and act delightful.
It changes color when I refresh it. And every time I finish one of the categories, there is a little animation, and the system tells me I've done a good job (lol).
When I click a button to say I've completed something, it marks the task as done in Reminders too. If I click Not today, it doesn't mark it as done, and I will see it again tomorrow. If I click Drop, because I've decided I'm not going to do the thing after all, it gets rid of it.
I've even paired it with my surcharge-test skill, and it gives me a color for the day (that I usually go on and ignore because projects are life but well, a reminder to give myself some rest sometimes).
It is also linked to what I call my Action Log (still experimenting with this). A file where I'm tracking everything i do on a specific day. Every time I mark something as done or drop it, the system records a line in an MD file: today, at this time, you completed this, dropped this, finished this, or started this.
It just works.
And it is so, so, so freaking delightful to work with.
I was also super proud because I shared it on Twitter and tagged Alex. He replied, and I had my little fangirling moment. hihihihi