working from home destroyed my routine until i started getting a morning briefing

when i worked in an office i’d get to my desk, open my laptop, and my calendar would be right there. i’d chat to people and they’d remind me about meetings or deadlines. there was a natural structure to the day.

working from home i’d wake up, make coffee, sit down and think “right what am i doing today” and then spend 20 minutes checking my calendar, my email, my task list, the weather, trying to piece together what the day looks like. half the time i’d miss something because i forgot to check one of them.

the thing that fixed this is embarrassingly simple. i use an AI assistant called alfred that lives in whatsapp. every morning at 7:30 it sends me one message with everything — weather, my calendar for the day, tasks that are due, anything in my inbox that needs attention, even birthdays coming up. you can add custom stuff too, i get a quick summary of AI news because that’s relevant to my work.

it sounds small but having everything in one message before i’ve finished my coffee means i actually start the day knowing what’s going on instead of spending the first half hour figuring it out.

anyone else struggle with the routine thing working remotely? what did you do about it?