Operating Principle
Use Codex/ChatGPT/Claude as the front door. Arthur should be able to dump messy thoughts into an agent; the agent then acts where possible, extracts human-only actions, and writes only the necessary commitments to Todoist or Calendar.
Keep the system light. Do not ask Arthur to learn a large new productivity method in one sitting. Introduce one operational change at a time and prefer immediate useful task management over meta-system design.
Default Stack
- AI agent: capture, clarify, research, execute, and triage.
- Todoist: task memory and reminders.
- Google Calendar: real appointments, protected time blocks, phone/admin windows, travel, work meetings, and on-call blocks.
- Linear: optional for project-like/coding/agent work, not ordinary life chores.
- Notion: optional reference/archive, not the active daily cockpit.
Triage Workflow
- Extract tasks from Arthur's message.
- Separate direct-agent work from human-only actions.
- Keep no more than seven active tasks visible unless Arthur explicitly asks for a larger import.
- Preserve the "why" behind each task in the description/comment.
- Add due dates only when useful: deadline, reminder, planned action window, or waiting follow-up.
- Use Calendar only for time-specific commitments or protected blocks; do not build a perfect full-day schedule.
- Hide or defer non-active ideas instead of making a stressful mega-backlog.
Use these buckets:
🚨 Red Zone: urgent, consequence-bearing, or deadline-sensitive.✅ This Week: active list, maximum seven tasks.⏳ Waiting: blocked on someone/something else.🧊 Later: real but intentionally hidden from daily attention.🧪 Experiments: productivity-system experiments and tooling.
Task Shape
Prefer this task content:
Emoji + concise verb phrase
Why: one sentence preserving the reason this matters.
Next action: the next visible physical or digital action.
Context: phone / computer / outside / errand / home / work break.
Blocker: optional.
Examples:
🩺 Call 116117 for psychotherapy appointment
Why: referral/code may expire around 2026-06-02.
Next action: call during weekday phone hours; allow up to 30 minutes.
Context: phone.
🚲 Buy tube and fix both bikes
Why: unlocks gym, errands, and dad's backup bike.
Next action: buy French-valve inner tube for personal bike.
Context: errand/home.
Emoji Convention
Use emojis as fast visual labels, not decoration. If unsure, use one emoji at the start of the task title.
🚨urgent consequence or deadline🩺health, doctor, therapy, medical admin💳money, bank, payments, taxes🏠housing, moving, apartment, home admin🚲bike, mobility, gym unblockers🛒groceries, shopping, errands🧹cleaning, room, maintenance💼career, job search, CEO calls, resume🖥️computer setup, monitor, tools, devices📅appointments or calendar-specific tasks⏳waiting/follow-up🧪productivity-system experiments
Tool Use
For Todoist MCP details, read references/todoist-mcp.md when creating, updating, completing, deleting, or troubleshooting tasks.
Todoist CLI (td) is installed and useful as a local fallback or verification layer when MCP behavior is uncertain. Do not guess tool choice task-by-task; use the MCP/CLI routing table in references/todoist-mcp.md so the first attempt is usually the right one.
For device and calendar context, read references/device-calendar-context.md when scheduling, choosing apps, or designing cross-device workflows.
Guardrails
- Do not turn Arthur's personal life into a startup backlog.
- Do not dump every mentioned idea into Todoist by default.
- Do not create many categories/projects before the current active system is working.
- Do not ask Arthur to manually maintain scores, formulas, or elaborate views.
- Do not read or expose credentials/tokens while troubleshooting MCP.
- Ask before destructive task actions such as bulk deletion or completion.