GeekThangs

A guided walkthrough

Set up a routine

One prompt, one repeating reminder, about five minutes to set up. It pays you back every morning after.

A routine is a skill on a clock: the same useful job, done at the same time, every day or week. This one turns the swirl in your head into a short plan for the day, before the day starts running you.

Pick the routine you wish you had

  • A morning plan Five minutes with the first coffee, and the day is sorted: what matters, what waits, what to say no to.
  • A Friday wrap-up The week summarized before you close up: what got done, what slipped, and what Monday starts with.
  • A weekly marketing nudge One social post drafted every Monday, so your page stops going quiet for a month at a time.
  • An end-of-day brain dump Empty your head into your phone at closing time, and walk into your evening actually off the clock.

The walkthrough below sets up the morning plan. The steps are identical for the others; only the prompt and the time of day change.

The five-minute morning plan, start to finish

What it doesEvery morning at the same time, your phone reminds you. You paste one saved prompt, dump everything on your plate after it, and get back a short plan: the three things that matter, the quick wins, and what can wait.

The toolChatGPT (free, no account needed) or Claude (free, quick sign-in), plus the clock or reminders app already on your phone.

  1. Pick your time

    A routine sticks when it has a fixed slot. Pick the five minutes you nearly always have: with the first coffee, in the truck before the first stop, right after the school run.

  2. Copy the morning prompt

    Tap the green button. This is the trick that makes it a routine: the same prompt every morning, so it takes zero thought.

    Build my plan for today.

Start by asking me to dump everything on my plate: tasks, appointments, worries, loose ends. Tell me I can type it or dictate it, in any order, as messy as it comes. Wait for my answer before building anything.

Then, using ONLY what I gave you:

Produce:
1. The top 3 things to do today, in order, with one line on why each earns its spot.
2. Quick wins: anything here that takes under 10 minutes.
3. What can wait until later this week without hurting me.
4. One thing I should hand off or say no to, with a one-line script for saying it.

Rules:
- Use only what I gave you. If two things conflict, ask me which matters more.
- Keep the whole plan short enough to read in one minute.

  3. Save it two taps away

    Paste it somewhere you can grab it half-awake: a pinned note in your notes app, or the top of a saved chat. On an iPhone you can go one better: Settings, General, Keyboard, Text Replacement lets a short code like ";plan" type the whole prompt for you.

  4. Set the repeating reminder

    In your phone's clock or reminders app, set a daily alarm at your time and name it "5-minute plan." The reminder is what turns a good idea into a routine; without it, this becomes a thing you did twice.

  5. Run it tomorrow morning

    When the reminder fires: open the AI tool, paste the prompt, and dump everything in your head after it. Typing or dictating both work, mess and all. Send, read your plan, start the day already sorted.

Give it a week before you judge it. Day one feels like a chore; by day five the plan starts catching things you would have dropped.

See where routines fit in the bigger AI picture

Where to go from here

That was one routine, run by you. Want more you can copy and run in a minute? The quick-win prompts are next.

See the Pre-Made Prompts New to AI? Start Here

Or try another walkthrough