context/priorities.md

priorities.md is the highest-leverage file in the command centre. Without it, triage falls back to generic signals — exclamation marks, “URGENT” in the subject line, sender seniority — which are wrong in your context as often as they’re right.

This is the file that makes the difference between AI triage you can trust and AI triage you have to second-guess.

What to include

• Explicit if-then rules in tier form
• What “reply today” vs “reply this week” actually means for you
• Topics that are auto-priority regardless of sender
• Auto-FYI signals (the senders and topics that should never trigger a draft)
• Specific signals to watch for (phrases, timing patterns, contextual cues that you’ve learned mean something)

What to exclude

• Vague aspirations (“focus on important stuff”)
• Anything that would embarrass you if a colleague read it (“ignore everything from X” — categorise as “low priority” instead)
• Aspirational rules you don’t actually follow — Claude needs your real triage behaviour, not the version of it you wish you had

Template

# Inbox Priorities

## Tier 1 — Reply same day
- Direct emails from my manager [Name]
- Direct emails from clients at [list of top-tier client names]
- Anything mentioning [list of live deals/RFPs/critical projects]
- Internal escalations marked URGENT or with red flag

## Tier 2 — Reply within 48h
- Other client emails
- Internal stakeholders requesting input on decisions
- Calendar invites from external parties

## Tier 3 — Reply this week
- Internal FYI requests for review
- Industry contacts, networking
- Speaking/event invitations

## Auto-FYI (no reply needed unless flagged)
- [Specific newsletters/reports you subscribe to]
- Automated system notifications
- CC'd on threads where I'm not the action-owner

## Auto-priority topics (regardless of sender)
- Anything mentioning [your top 3-5 active workstreams]
- Mentions of [specific competitor or market event]
- Legal/compliance keywords: NDA, MSA, contract, redline

## Specific signals to watch for
- "Quick question" from senior leaders → usually NOT quick,
  treat as Tier 1
- "When you have a moment" from clients → Tier 2, don't defer
  indefinitely
- Friday late-afternoon emails from [region] → often reflect
  Monday-morning urgency in their TZ
- Subject line ALL CAPS from internal team → genuinely urgent
  (we don't do this casually)

How to populate this honestly

Two prompts produce a more honest version of this file than introspection alone:

For the tiers: look at your last month of replied emails. Which senders did you reply to within four hours? Within a day? Which sat for a week? The behavioural data is more honest than your stated priorities.

For the auto-FYI list: look at your last month of unreplied emails that you didn’t feel guilty about. Those are the ones that genuinely don’t need replies. Capture the senders.

Spending 45 minutes on this calibration is the difference between a triage workflow that earns trust and one that doesn’t.

How often to update

Quarterly. Or whenever a new client onboards, a new project hits Tier 1, or a sender pattern shifts. The rules drift faster than role context — what was Tier 1 six months ago may now be Tier 3, and a new sender who joined a key client account needs adding the day they appear.

A signal that this file needs updating: you find yourself manually re-classifying emails after triage runs. That’s the rule misfiring; capture the new rule before you forget it.