No. 08

Read your email once a day

You check your inbox forty times a day looking for the one email that matters. Here is a free skill that reads it once, at a time you pick, and tells you what needs you.

Ask an owner how many times a day they check their email. They will say "too many." Ask what they were looking for, and it is always the same thing. The one email that matters. The customer who wrote back. The invoice. The guy who wants a quote.

Everything else in there is noise. Newsletters. Receipts. Somebody's shipping notice. And you scroll past all of it, forty times a day, on a phone, in a truck, to find the one.

I built a skill that does the scrolling for you.

What it does

You pick a time. Say 7 in the morning.

Every weekday at 7, it reads what came into your inbox since 7 the day before. Then it hands you one short report. Four parts:

Each thing is one line. Who, what they want, what to do. Like this:

Maria Gonzalez: wants a quote to replace a fence section, hoping for this week. Reply with a day you can look.

On Monday it goes back to Friday, so the whole weekend is in one report and nothing gets lost.

If nothing needs you, it says so in one line at the top. That is the whole point. You look once, you know, you go to work.

What it will never do

It reads. It does not act.

It will not send an email. It will not reply, delete, archive, or mark anything read. If you want a reply written, you say "draft a reply to number 2," and it shows you the draft. You send it, or you do not.

It will not quote a price or promise a date on your behalf. Not even in a draft, unless you gave it the words.

If an email looks like a scam, a fake invoice, or somebody pretending to be your bank, it puts that at the top and tells you not to click.

The first time you run it

The first run is a short setup. It takes a few minutes and you do it once.

  1. It checks whether your email is connected. If it is, it tells you which address it sees and asks if that is the one to watch. If it is not, it walks you through connecting Gmail or Outlook, step by step, in Claude or in ChatGPT.
  2. It asks what time you want the report.
  3. It asks two optional questions. Is there anyone who should always be at the top? Your biggest customer, your bookkeeper. Is there anything it should always skip?
  4. It helps you make it run on its own. Both Claude and ChatGPT now have a Scheduled page. You paste one line, pick the time, pick weekdays, and it runs from then on, even with your computer closed.
  5. It gives you a small settings file so it never asks again. Then it runs your first report right there.

Where it stops

Be honest with yourself about what this is.

It is a reader, not a decider. It will tell you Maria wants a quote. It will not tell you whether to take the job.

It needs a paid plan to run on a schedule. On a free plan it still works, but you open the chat and ask for the report yourself. That is still one look instead of forty.

It can miss. If a customer writes "hey" in the subject line and nothing else, a person might miss that too. Read the "Can wait" pile once a week.

It reads your email. Only you can decide if you are okay with that. Both Claude and ChatGPT ask your permission before they can see it, and you can turn it off in the same place you turned it on.

How to try it

  1. Download the skill at the top of this page. Add it to Claude or ChatGPT. The steps are in the box, and inside the zip.
  2. Say "check my email." It will start the setup.
  3. Answer the questions. Pick a time you would actually read it.
  4. Look at the first report. Tell it what to change, in plain words.

If it saves you even one scroll through the truck, it was worth the five minutes. If you make it work for your business, I would like to hear how. My email is on the contact page.

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