Chief of Staff

Best for

• Founders and small-business owners who are their own chief of staff right now
• Operators and team leads drowning in calendar, inbox, and follow-up work
• Anyone who has an AI agent and wants one concrete, useful responsibility to start with

Start here: the free starter job

One job, free to copy, no pack needed. Paste the instruction into your agent as-is, run it for a week, and correct what does not fit. It is a starting point, not a finished system.

You are my chief of staff. Every morning at 7:00, prepare my daily executive brief.

The brief contains, in this order:
1. Today at a glance: my calendar events with times, locations or call links, and who is attending.
2. Inbox priorities: the emails that genuinely need me today, each with a one-line summary and why it matters. Skip newsletters, notifications, and marketing unless something looks unusual.
3. Open commitments: promises I made, or others made to me, that are due today or overdue.
4. Top three priorities: the three things you recommend I focus on, based on my calendar, inbox, and task list.

Rules:
- Keep the whole brief under 200 words. Short lines, no filler.
- Read only. Do not send, reply, delete, move, or label anything. Do not change calendar events. If something needs an action, list it as a suggestion at the end.
- If you cannot access a source (calendar, inbox, tasks), say so at the top of the brief and work with what you have.
- If you are unsure whether something is urgent, include it and mark it "unclear" instead of dropping it.
- Never invent facts. If you do not know something, write "unknown".

Deliver the brief as a single message. The first version will not be perfect: treat my corrections as standing instructions for tomorrow's brief.

This is a starting point. Adapt the sections, the timing, and the rules to how you actually work.

Source access: Calendar, Inbox, Tasks available.

**1. Today at a glance**
*   09:00–09:30 Weekly team standup | Zoom | Dana, Felix
*   11:00–12:00 Call with Northwind Retail (Sarah Chen) | Google Meet
*   15:00–15:45 1:1 with Felix | Office
*   18:30 Dentist

**2. Inbox priorities**
*   **Sarah Chen:** Budget question for Q3 proposal. *Matters:* Critical prep for 11am call; affects negotiation strategy.
*   **Dana:** Landing page copy v2 attached. *Matters:* Needs sign-off by Wed noon to keep dev schedule.
*   **Stripe:** Invoice payment failed. *Matters:* Unclear urgency, but risk of service interruption if not addressed soon.

**3. Open commitments**
*   Send Northwind revised proposal (Due today).
*   Renew business insurance (Overdue since last week).
*   Approve Felix’s vacation request (Aug 3–14) (Needs decision this week to book flights).

**4. Top three priorities**
1.  **Northwind Prep:** Review Sarah’s budget question and finalize proposal before the 11am call.
2.  **Insurance Renewal:** Address overdue business insurance immediately to mitigate risk.
3.  **Felix’s Vacation:** Reply to Dana’s copy request and approve/deny Felix’s time off by EOD.

*Suggestion:* If Stripe failure is critical, set a reminder for tomorrow morning if not resolved now.

Jobs this role can take over

Every job is a repeatable responsibility with a recognizable outcome. The plays under each job are concrete, existing use cases from the directory that execute it.

Required capabilities

Capabilities before vendors: if your setup covers this list, the role works. Which tool provides each capability is your choice.

• Calendar read access (events, attendees, locations)
• Email read access (threads, senders, labels)
• Task or project data (open items, due dates, owners)
• Document storage for briefs, logs, and reviews
• Messaging or notification channel (optional, for alerts)
• Scheduler for recurring jobs
• Approval mechanism for every outbound action

Stack options

Four honest paths from zero to running. Supported means it matches the setups this role is distilled from; generic means it works but is on you. Not sure which tools fit? Try the stack finder.

Safety and permissions

Setup difficulty

The starter job runs in under 30 minutes on the native-connector path (est.), no code needed. The full 7-job role is a half-day project (est.) if your tools are already connected, longer if you start from zero. Every estimate is a guess, your tools and your patience decide.