Calendar hygiene and focus time
Keeps the week honest by removing dead bookings, asking for agendas, and protecting blocks for real work.
Last month, list meetings with no guests and no agenda, and send me the list to delete or keep.
The job, and what good looks like.
A calendar that fills itself looks busy and produces nothing. Holds created in January sit empty, recurring meetings with no agenda take an hour a week, and the work that matters gets squeezed into whatever gap survives. Hygiene is a monthly reset with a weekly check on top. The monthly pass removes what is dead: holds with no guests, meetings that have not run in three months, and duplicate series created by accident. It also fixes what is missing, because every recurring meeting needs an agenda, a named owner, and an end date when it should stop. The weekly pass is lighter. Flexible meetings move to open time, and two or three blocks a week are protected for work that needs more than thirty minutes. When a colleague books over a focus block, the block moves rather than the work being dropped. Time is requested with a purpose and a length instead of a vague hold, which cuts the bookings that are really just placeholders. A person still decides which meetings matter enough to keep, what genuinely needs an uninterrupted morning, and who to protect when two claims collide. The test is whether the week as booked matches the week as intended.
When it is handled
- Two protected focus blocks a week
- Dead holds removed monthly
- Every recurring meeting has an agenda
Works with tools like
- Google Calendar
- Reclaim.ai
- Cal.com
- Microsoft Outlook
Ready-made automations. Pick the one that fits.
Each one is a plain-language document. Run it as it is, or change the timing, the rules and the tools to match your team.
Agenda Request
New booking with no agenda attached, ask the host for the outcome they need and send the request before the meeting.
When a meeting is booked without an agenda
Focus Block Report
This week's focus blocks, record which were kept, moved, or booked over, and send the summary.
Every Friday at 5:00pm
Stale Hold Cleanup
Last month, list meetings with no guests and no agenda, and send me the list to delete or keep.
The first Monday of each month
You stay in charge.
At every step.
It sorts and reminds. You decide what to do.
- It never replies for you
Digests and reminders come to you. Anything that would send a message waits for your OK.
- Undo what you don't want
Every step is recorded, and a file it changed can be put back.
- Only what you connect
Each automation reaches only the inbox, calendar and notes you give it.
Stale Hold Cleanup
Approve before it sends the email?
Before you download.
- Where does it run?
- On your Mac or Windows computer, in the background. It keeps working after you close its window, and only reaches the folders and apps you connect for each automation.
- How does it connect to our CRM and other tools?
- Through each app's own connection where it offers one, signed in once by you, or by using the app in a browser the way you would. Each automation gets only the connections you give it, and the tools a page names are examples you can swap for your own.
- Does it run when my computer is asleep?
- It keeps your computer awake while a job runs and just before a scheduled one. While the computer is closed or off, nothing runs; when it wakes, it checks the inbox, calendar and other sources it watches for anything that arrived meanwhile.
- How does my team use it?
- Each person who runs automations installs the app. Keep a project in a shared folder, such as Google Drive or a network drive, and teammates can open it and follow every run, while one person owns it and runs it.
- Do I need anyone technical to set it up?
- No. Download the app, add an automation in plain words, and connect only what that job needs. Nothing runs until you switch it on.
Already have tools for this? Here is the difference.
Built-in rules in your email and calendar
Filing messages by sender or subject.
They can't read what a message asks for, or follow up on it.
Flowchart automation tools
Connecting apps if you build and maintain the flow.
Every exception becomes another branch.
AI chat assistants
Summarizing when you ask.
Nothing happens until you remember to ask.
AUTOMATE.md
Your routine, written in plain words. It runs on its own, follows your rules, handles the exceptions a flowchart can't, and asks you when it matters. The file stays yours, whichever AI model runs it.
Related workflows.
Weekly review and planning
A fixed Friday or Monday pass that closes last week's leftovers and books next week's work into the calendar.
3 automations
Inbox triage routine
A fixed daily pass that turns unread mail into deleted, answered, scheduled, or handed-off threads.
3 automations
Meeting notes
Turns a recorded call into a written record with the decisions, the open questions, and the owners.
2 automations
Start with one job.
Make it your own.
macOS — coming soon- 1
Get the app
It runs on your computer, next to your files.
- 2
Add the automation
Paste the instructions into the app, or save them as a file next to your work.
- 3
Try it, then turn it on
Run it once and check the result. It only runs on its own once you switch it on.