Personal Planner

An AI-powered personal planning system using Cursor and markdown files

What is This?

This is your intelligent personal planning system built on a simple idea: you describe your work in natural language, and the AI organizes everything for you.

Core Commands to Get Started:

• 📝 /daily-update - Share what you did today (AI learns and organizes everything)
• 🌅 /daily-briefing - Get your morning briefing (AI tells you what to focus on)
• ➕ /create-focus-area - Create new tracking systems for anything you want

The system is flexible and extensible - these are starting points. You can add more commands or focus areas as needed.

---

🚀 Quick Start

First Time Setup - Onboard the System

Think of this like onboarding a new assistant - the AI needs context about you and your work!

On your very first /daily-update, don't hold back. Share:

About You & Your Role:

• What's your job title and responsibilities?
• What team are you on?
• Who do you work with regularly?
• Who's your manager?

Your Current Projects:

• What are you working on right now?
• What's the context and goals for each project?
• Any deadlines or milestones?
• Who are the stakeholders?

Your Goals:

• What are you trying to achieve? (Promotion, project completion, skills, etc.)
• What matters most to you professionally?
• Any upcoming performance reviews or important dates?

Your Work Patterns:

• When are you most productive?
• What kinds of meetings do you have?
• Common collaborators or stakeholders?

Example first update:

I'm a Senior Software Engineer on the Platform team, reporting to Jane Smith. 
I'm currently leading the API microservices migration - we're breaking down 
our monolith into independent services. Target is Q1 2025 completion.

Also working toward promotion to Staff Engineer - hoping for mid-year promo 
cycle. I mentor two junior engineers (Sarah and Mike) and I'm trying to build 
more cross-functional visibility.

Regular meetings: Daily standups (9:30am), 1:1 with Jane (Tuesdays 2pm), 
architecture reviews (Thursdays). Most productive in mornings 9-12.

Current priorities: API migration is #1, promotion prep is #2, team mentoring 
is ongoing. Key stakeholders: Product team (always emailing about timelines), 
SRE team (for deployment), Engineering leadership.

Don't worry about being too detailed - this context helps the AI understand what matters and make better suggestions!

After Initial Onboarding

1. Daily: Type /daily-update (5-10 min) - just your day's highlights
2. Mornings: Type /daily-briefing (5 min) - get your personalized briefing
3. As needed: Type /create-focus-area to track new things

The system gets smarter with each update!

---

🎯 How It Works

The Commands

The system comes with a few starter commands in .cursor/commands/:

/daily-update - Log your day

• You: Share what you worked on (free-form, natural language)
• AI: Reads each focus area's instructions
• AI: Processes your update through each focus area
• Result: Everything organized automatically

/daily-briefing - Get your morning brief

• AI: Reads each focus area's instructions
• AI: Generates briefing for each focus area (may use Google Calendar/Gmail MCP)
• AI: Combines into comprehensive morning brief
• Result: You know exactly what to focus on today

/create-focus-area - Track something new

• AI: Guides you through creating a new focus area
• AI: Generates proper instructions.md and structure
• Result: New tracking system ready immediately

You can add more commands! Edit .cursorrules or create new command files in .cursor/commands/.

Focus Areas (Modular Plugins)

The system has focus areas - self-contained modules that each track something different.

Each focus area:

• Has its own instructions.md that tells the AI what to do
• Organizes its data however makes sense
• Processes daily updates independently
• Contributes its own section to daily briefings

You can add any focus areas you want! Track whatever matters to you.

See /focus-areas/README.md for examples and how to create your own.

---

📂 File Structure

personal-planner/
│
├── daily-logs/                    # Your daily updates
│   └── YYYY-MM-DD.md
│
├── focus-areas/                   # Modular tracking systems
│   ├── README.md                 # Guide to creating focus areas
│   │
│   ├── [your-focus-area-1]/      # Each focus area is independent
│   │   ├── instructions.md       # Tells AI what to do
│   │   └── [data-files]          # Organized however you want
│   │
│   ├── [your-focus-area-2]/
│   │   ├── instructions.md
│   │   └── [data-files]
│   │
│   └── [add-more-as-needed]/     # Infinitely extensible!
│
└── .cursorrules                  # System configuration

---

💡 The Magic

What Makes This Powerful

1. You Just Talk

• No form filling
• No categorizing
• Just describe your day naturally
• AI figures out the rest

2. AI Learns Over Time

• Week 1: Basic tracking
• Week 2-3: Patterns emerge
• Month 2+: Personalized insights

3. Modular & Extensible

• Each focus area is independent
• Add new focus areas anytime
• Remove what you don't need
• Customize instructions per area

4. Private & Yours

• All data in markdown files
• Your private repo
• No external databases
• Full control

---

🎨 Example Daily Update

You: /daily-update

AI: How was your day?

You: Spent most of the morning finishing up the user service extraction for
the API migration - that's finally done! Had our weekly 1:1 which was really
valuable, discussed promotion timeline. Helped Sarah debug a race condition 
in the payment system. Got spammed by JIRA emails again about tickets I'm 
not even on. Tomorrow need to start on the notification service.

AI: ✅ Processed your update through your focus areas:

[Each focus area processes according to its instructions.md]

Focus Area 1:
- [What it extracted/updated]

Focus Area 2:
- [What it extracted/updated]

Focus Area 3:
- [What it extracted/updated]

📝 Patterns learned:
- [Any new learnings across focus areas]

✅ Daily log saved to /daily-logs/2025-01-15.md

Tomorrow's suggested focus: [Based on what focus areas learned]

---

🌅 Example Daily Briefing

You: /daily-briefing

AI:
# Daily Briefing - Tuesday, January 16, 2025

[Each focus area generates its briefing section based on its instructions.md]

## [Focus Area 1 Briefing]
[Generated content based on that focus area's data and instructions]

## [Focus Area 2 Briefing]
[Generated content - might use MCP integrations like Google Calendar]

## [Focus Area 3 Briefing]
[Generated content with suggestions and reminders]

[Continues for all focus areas...]

---

Have a productive day! 🚀

The specific content depends entirely on what focus areas you've created and what their instructions.md files tell the AI to do.

---

🔧 Extending the System

Add New Focus Areas

Want to track something else? Easy!

Using the helper command:

/create-focus-area

The AI will guide you through creating a properly structured focus area.

Or manually:

1. Create /focus-areas/[name]/
2. Write instructions.md (tells AI what to do)
3. Create data files (organize however you want)
4. Done! AI automatically includes it

See /focus-areas/README.md for complete guide, templates, and examples.

Add New Commands

Commands are just markdown files in .cursor/commands/. To add your own:

1. Create .cursor/commands/your-command.md
2. Write instructions for the AI to follow
3. Update .cursorrules to reference it
4. Use /your-command in Cursor

The system is infinitely extensible!

---

🎓 How Each Focus Area Works

Focus Area = Instructions + Data

Each focus area has:

instructions.md - Tells the AI:

• What to look for in daily updates
• Where/how to store information
• What to show in briefings
• How to learn and improve

Data files - Organized however makes sense:

• By time (sprint, quarter, year)
• By category
• By project
• Whatever works for that focus area!

The AI Reads Instructions

When you run /daily-update or /daily-briefing:

1. AI finds all focus areas
2. Reads each instructions.md
3. Follows those instructions exactly
4. Each focus area processes independently

---

💻 Setup (Optional MCP Integrations)

Google Workspace MCP Server (Recommended)

For full integration with Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive:

Install: Google Workspace MCP Server

# Install via uvx (easiest)
uvx workspace-mcp

What it enables:

• Time-blocking: Real calendar data, optimized schedules around meetings
• Email intelligence: Process Gmail for priorities and action items
• Document access: Read meeting notes, project docs from Google Docs
• Data integration: Access spreadsheets, presentations, drive files
• Context awareness: Link daily updates to actual emails, meetings, documents

Setup in Cursor:

Add to your MCP settings (.cursor/mcp.json or similar):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google_workspace": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["workspace-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id",
        "GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-secret"
      }
    }
  }
}

See the Google Workspace MCP documentation for:

• Creating OAuth credentials
• First-time authentication
• Available services and tools
• Advanced configuration

Without MCP

All focus areas work without MCP! You'll get:

• ✅ Daily update tracking
• ✅ Brag sheet building
• ✅ General time block suggestions
• ❌ No real calendar integration
• ❌ No email processing
• ❌ No document access

MCP makes the system significantly more powerful but isn't required.

---

📊 Tips for Success

Daily Update Tips

• Be conversational: Talk like you're telling a friend
• Include context: Why things mattered
• Note patterns: "Another useless meeting", "Really productive morning"
• Mention people: Collaborations and help given/received
• Be honest: Challenges, blocks, frustrations

Consistency Matters

• Week 1: System is learning
• Week 2-3: Patterns start emerging
• Month 2+: System knows you well
• The more you use it, the smarter it gets

Customization

• Edit any focus area's instructions.md to change behavior
• Add focus areas for anything you want to track
• Remove focus areas you don't need
• System adapts to YOU

---

🚦 Getting Started Checklist

• Day 1: Do comprehensive first /daily-update with full context (see onboarding section above)
• Review what AI extracted and where it stored things
• Day 2: Morning /daily-briefing - see what AI learned
• Day 2: Evening /daily-update - shorter, just today's work
• Week 1: Daily updates (build the habit and let AI learn)
• Week 2: Review focus areas - check what's being tracked
• Anytime: Add new focus areas with /create-focus-area
• (Optional) Set up Google Workspace MCP for calendar/email integration

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❓ FAQ

Q: Do I need to use all focus areas?
A: No! Use what's helpful. Remove or ignore others.

Q: Can I edit the AI's work?
A: Yes! All files are yours to edit.

Q: What if AI gets something wrong?
A: Edit the file, and AI will learn from it.

Q: Can I track personal stuff too?
A: Absolutely! Add focus areas for anything.

---

🎉 Philosophy

This system is built on simple principles:

1. Consistency > Perfection: Quick daily updates beat perfect weekly ones
2. AI Augments, Not Replaces: You describe, AI organizes
3. Memory is Powerful: Systems that learn get smarter
4. Privacy Matters: Your data stays yours
5. Modular is Better: Add what you need, ignore the rest
6. Knowledge Share First: Treat the system like a new hire - onboard it properly!

---

🚀 You're Ready!

Start with your first update:

/daily-update

First time? Give the AI context - share about your role, projects, goals, work patterns. Think of it like onboarding a new assistant who needs to understand your world.

After that? Just 5-10 minutes daily describing what you did. The AI learns and gets smarter over time.

The system is flexible - use what works, change what doesn't, add what's missing. It adapts to YOU.

Good luck! 🎯