On a given day, how much administrative BS do you have to do before actually touching your to-do list?
“I had a standard morning routine. About two hours. Check Slack, emails, pending tickets I needed to respond to. And post a daily stand-up telling my managing team what I was working on.”
As the principal AI technical specialist for our marketing team, Tim Biondollo is part engineer and part one-man problem-solving cavalry. Most of his job is spent helping others create solutions that improve their daily workflow. But I wanted to know what kind of magic he built for himself.
He shared with me the overnight automation that shaves off two hours of morning busywork. Plus, the real prompt he built, so you can make one for yourself using any multi-agent tool you like. (And, if you’ve never messed around with agents before, this also makes a really great first project!)
Agent of Clarity
When mapping out his daily routine, Tim had a flash of inspiration.
“I thought, ‘Claude can access a lot of these things. I’m going to make myself a little workflow.’”
He also realized that with a little clever prompting, he could get the tool to find prebuilt connectors (integrations that connect apps) to bring his entire morning process into one place.
What he built is a pre-scheduled task that gathers everything he needs to start his day into one “daily Chief of Staff brief.” It includes:
- Today’s calendar with meeting prep for each event.
- Top emails flagged by importance and action items.
- Tasks due today (or soon) with priority level.
- Slack threads in need of attention.
It also takes all of that and writes a draft stand-up that he can share with his manager. And all of that is ready when he first logs on.
And just for funsies, “one of the optional features is a daily quote from a famous person that reflects what I’m actually dealing with at work. I’m surprised how much I like it. Not something that usually happens pre-coffee.”
Addressing the Elephant
The coolest part about Tim’s tool is also the part that gave me pause.
“It’s already pulled context about what I was doing yesterday and what I need to do today, so when I want to get started, I just say, ‘Let’s pick up at task 23.’”
So I had to ask… is this thing gonna narc on me if I take an extra-long lunch?
“It just doesn’t track your day in that way,” he reassures me. “It doesn’t have temporal awareness beyond ‘it’s [currently] this time.’ It’s not following you throughout the day, wondering where you went.”
And what about those stories you see where AI goes rogue and starts replying to messages without being asked?
“Before the task ever runs, the tool is going to ask you to run it once manually and approve what level of access it has for each [connection]. You can say, ‘I don’t want it to ever post to Slack.’ And instead of just relying on the AI to remember that each time, it will set the actual permission.”
But if your tinfoil hat is as secure as mine, I’ll also share how to set access to read-only a little later.
Copy, Paste, Converse
Tim built this with Claude Cowork, but he designed it to be “surface agnostic,” which is fancy talk for “use whatever tool you like.” With two quick caveats:
“It would work just as well on any platform that has the capability for the AI to discover connectors on its own. Having multi-agent capability is also important for it to work well.”
That means it wouldn’t work on a simple chat platform. You’ll want to use a tool that can support multiple agents at once, such as Cowork, ChatGPT Workspace/Teams, or Gemini with Google Workspace integration.
From there, you just copy/paste the prompt and have a conversation with the tool.
1. Paste the provided prompt into that chat window of your favorite AI tool.
When you see how long this prompt is, you'll understand why I had to link it elsewhere, but don't be daunted: This is really simple and straightforward.
Copy the Chief of Staff prompt from this page and paste it into your AI tool, then come back here.
“[The AI] searches for available connectors and surfaces connect buttons right in the chat.”
In other words, everything you need to do can be handled within the chat window of your LLM. No need to mess around with code or hunt for settings in a dozen different tools.
2. Answer a few intake questions.
“It’s going to ask you a few questions, like: What do you do? What’s important about your work? What do you check every day in the morning or evening? It figures out how to map that to tools it can connect to and gather information from.”
3. Run it once manually and approve access.
Here’s where you can choose whether the tool can read only or actively interact with things like Slack, Asana, Gmail, etc.
You can get really granular with that, too.
“Mine reads Slack, but only specific channels I’ve chosen. That limits context, so it’s not getting confused across a thousand channels. It reduces the risk surface, too.”
Choice suggestions for your Chief of Staff
Though setup is incredibly simple, I asked Tim what you should do to really make the most of this.
1. Map your morning first.
Though the tool will help you explore your workflow, it helps if you really think about what your ideal morning routine looks like.
“Most people don’t have their day mapped out as clearly as they think. Try to keep the shape general, but also think about what unique tools are really valuable in your specific role.”
2. Consider what’s worth automating.
“If you automate a bunch of things that only take five minutes every morning, you’ve only saved five minutes,” he points out. “Think carefully about what takes up the most time in your routine.”
3. Follow the principle of least privilege.
‘Least privilege’ is a security doctrine that dictates that any user or tool should have only the level of access it needs to do its job.
“It applies broadly across security, and it applies here,” Tim advises. “I had an instance where I hadn’t set that up, and the AI made a comment somewhere in a way I didn’t want. It wasn’t dangerous, just annoying. I had to go delete it.”
During the setup process, don’t give the tool access to every Slack channel, every folder, every inbox. Stick with only what’s needed to create a morning brief.
You can always increase access later. Which brings us to the final tip…
4. Don’t be afraid to ask for changes.
“It can update its own configuration later if you change your mind,” Tim shares. Just tell the tool in plain language that you want to add, remove, or change access at any time.
After using it for a while, you can also ask it to analyze your routine and suggest improvements.
“There may be connectors available to you that you’re not aware of. Maybe you’re an SEO person checking a Looker report every morning; there might be a connector for that. That’s the difference between good and great.”
Now click below to copy that prompt:
