New to Claude?
Do These 5 Things First

You are going to help me set up Claude so that every answer you give me from now on is tailored to me, my work, and how I think. We're going to do this as an interview, not a form. Do not skip ahead, and do not dump a giant list of questions at once.

The goal: by the end of this chat, you write me a personal-instructions block I can paste into Claude's settings, so every future conversation already knows who I am, what I do, what I'm trying to get done, and how I like you to respond.

Rules for the interview:
- Ask me ONE question at a time, then wait for my answer before the next one.
- Start broad, then go deeper based on what I say. Follow the thread.
- If an answer is vague, ask a follow-up until it's concrete. Push me for specifics: real numbers, real names, real examples.
- Keep it conversational, like a smart friend getting to know me. No survey energy.
- Roughly 12 to 18 questions total. Don't stop early just because you think you have enough.

Cover these areas, but in a natural order, not as a checklist you read out loud:
1. Who I am. Name, where I live, what I do for work, my role, how long I've done it.
2. My work. The business or job in detail. What I actually produce. Who my customers or team are. How I make money or get judged.
3. My goals. What I'm trying to hit in the next 90 days and the next year. What "winning" looks like for me.
4. My week. How I actually spend my time. What eats my hours. What I dread. What I'm best at.
5. My skills and gaps. What I'm great at, what I'm weak at, what I'd love to just hand off to you.
6. How I communicate. My tone, the words I use, the words I hate, examples of writing that sounds like me.
7. How I want you to respond. Long or short. Direct or gentle. Push back on me or agree. Ask before acting or just go.
8. Anything else a great assistant would kill to know about me.

When you have enough, say: "I have what I need. Here's your personal-instructions block." Then output a clean, copy-paste block, written in the first person as instructions TO you (Claude), that captures:
- Who I am and what I do (tight and factual)
- What I'm working toward
- How I want you to communicate with me
- Any standing rules (things to always do, things to never do)
- The one instruction I explain below

Add this line to the block, word for word:
"Address me by my first name in every single reply."

That's a reliability trick. The moment you stop using my name, it's my signal the chat has gotten too long and I should start a fresh one.

Keep the final block under 400 words. Plain language, no fluff. This is the thing I'm going to live with in every single chat, so make it count.

Start now with your first question. Just one.

Now I want you to help me build a second brain: a set of files on my computer that store everything about my work and my life, so that in every future chat you can read them and instantly have full context on me. No more re-explaining myself.

We'll do this in two parts: an interview, then you build the folder system.

PART 1 — INTERVIEW ME
Same rules as before: one question at a time, wait for my answer, follow the thread, push for specifics. This time audit BOTH my work life and my personal life. Roughly 12 to 20 questions. Move through these areas naturally, not as a list you read out loud:

Work
- What I do and the current state of it (projects, clients, revenue, deadlines, what's on fire)
- The people in my work world (team, clients, partners, key contacts, and what matters about each)
- My tools and where my important stuff already lives
- The recurring work I do every week or month
- My goals and the real numbers I'm chasing

Personal
- The big areas of my life outside work (health, family, money, home, hobbies, learning)
- Goals and habits I'm trying to build or break
- Important people in my personal life and what matters about them
- What's stressing me out or getting dropped

PART 2 — BUILD IT
When you have enough, create an actual folder system on my computer (or, if you can't write files here, lay it out so clearly that I can create it in two minutes). Use this as your starting structure, but rename things to fit MY real life based on what I told you:

second-brain/
  START-HERE.md        <- the map. what every folder holds and how you should use this brain.
  about-me.md          <- who I am, my story, my goals, how I communicate
  work/
    overview.md        <- my business or job, how it works, how I make money
    projects/          <- one file per active project, with status and next steps
    people/            <- one file per key person and what I know about them
    goals.md           <- my targets and the numbers
  personal/
    overview.md        <- my life outside work
    people/            <- important people in my personal life
    goals.md           <- personal goals and habits
  routines.md          <- the recurring tasks in my life, work and personal

Fill every file with the real details I gave you. Do not leave placeholders. Where something is missing, ask me one more question instead of guessing.

In START-HERE.md, write clear instructions to your future self, like: "Whenever we start a task, read the relevant files in this second brain first, so you have full context on [my name] before you answer." Make it so any future version of you knows to use this brain automatically.

When you're done, show me the full structure and tell me the one habit that keeps a second brain alive: when something important changes, I tell you, and you update the file.

Start with Part 1, question one. Just one.

You now know a lot about me: my personal instructions and my second brain. I want you to use all of it to find the single highest-leverage thing in my life to automate, then actually build it.

Do this in four steps. Talk me through each one, don't just do it silently.

STEP 1 — REVIEW
Read everything you know about me: my personal instructions and every file in my second brain. If anything looks thin, ask me a couple of quick questions to fill the gaps before you go further.

STEP 2 — FIND THE ONE
Look at all the recurring work in my life and find the single best task to automate right now. Score the candidates on three things:
- Time: how many hours a week or month it eats
- Dread: how much I hate doing it, or how often I drop it
- Doability: how cleanly you could actually do it with the tools I have
Show me your top 3 as a short ranked list with your reasoning, then recommend the ONE to build first. Let me confirm or override before you build anything.

STEP 3 — BUILD IT AS A SKILL
Once I confirm, build this automation as a reusable skill, so it runs the same way every time and I never have to re-explain it. Use the built-in Skill Creator to do it properly. Tell me plainly:
- What the skill does, step by step
- What it needs from me or my connected tools to run
- Anything I have to connect or turn on first, and exactly how to do it
Then build it and run it once as a test, so we both watch it work. Fix anything that's off.

STEP 4 — PUT IT ON AUTOPILOT
If this task should happen on a schedule (every morning, every Friday, the first of the month) or whenever something specific happens, set it up as a scheduled task so it runs without me. Tell me exactly when it'll run and what it'll do each time. If it genuinely shouldn't be automatic, say so, and tell me the trigger that should make me run it by hand.

One rule: build ONE thing, and build it well. Don't try to automate my whole life today. We get one real win running, I live with it for a week, then I come back and we build the next one.

Start with Step 1.