10.4 — Build Your Three Scheduled Tasks | AI for Real Life

Three scheduled tasks.

Module 9 introduced a scheduled task (Sunday Reset), three optional variants of it (Daily Brief, Friday Wind-Down, App Deadline Tracker), and a four-stage exam runway (Pre-Exam Watch). Three scheduled tasks total. One of them is locked in for everyone (Sunday Reset). The other two are your call.

The reason for three: it's the largest number of recurring automations a normal student actually notices in their week. Four becomes ambient noise. Five gets ignored. Three is the threshold where each one earns its keep.

Your three slots, in order

Slot 1: Sunday Reset (mandatory). The flagship. Sunday 6pm. Everyone keeps this one. Slot 2: One Pre-Exam Watch (recommended). Tied to your highest-friction class, usually whichever one you historically start studying late for. Slot 3: One of the M9.2 variants (your call). Daily Brief, Friday Wind-Down, or App Deadline Tracker. Pick the one that matches a real pain point from your Panel 1 map. If none of the variants fits, leave Slot 3 empty until something earns it.

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Why Sunday Reset is locked in

Sunday Reset is a weekly scheduled task that reads your calendar and produces a Week Map for the upcoming week. Unlike the other M9 tasks, it doesn't depend on exam timing or application season: it applies every week of the term. M10 locks it as Slot 1 so every dashboard has a weekly planning automation in place.

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Slot 3 is allowed to be empty

If neither Daily Brief, Friday Wind-Down, nor App Deadline Tracker matches a pain in your Panel 1 map, leave Slot 3 unset for now. A fake third automation that you ignore by week 3 is worse than two automations that actually run. Slot 3 can fill in later when application season opens, when finals show up, or when you start a new internship.

Slot 1 · wire Sunday Reset (the flagship).

The full Sunday Reset prompt is in Lesson 9.2. Don't rewrite it; reuse it. Your job in M10.4 is just to wire it: the schedule, the Coach Cowork Project link, the calendar connector toggle, and the output destination. Five settings, ~3 minutes.

Sunday Reset · the wiring spec (paste prompt body from M9.2)

SCHEDULE: Every Sunday, 6:00 PM (your local time) Recurring (not one-time) PROJECT LINK: Your Academic Coach Project (the one you re-tuned in 10.3) This gives the prompt access to your syllabi, AI Policy, How-I-Learn CONNECTORS NEEDED: Calendar connector ON (Google Calendar / Outlook / iCloud) Gmail connector OPTIONAL (only on if you want it to peek at deadline emails) OUTPUT DESTINATION: Default (message in Claude when you open the app) (most students leave this; some forward it to email; your call) PROMPT BODY: From Lesson 9.2 (the full Sunday Reset prompt) Don't rewrite it. Open 9.2, copy the prompt, paste here. ONE-TIME TUNING: After it fires the first Sunday, run M9.2's "tighten the format" follow-up if Drop This / One-Line Focus / Week Grid sections aren't right for your week shape.

If you already set up Sunday Reset back in M9.2

Don't make a second one. Open the existing scheduled task, confirm it's pointed at the tuned Coach Cowork Project from 10.3 (not the old version), confirm calendar connector is on, confirm 6pm Sunday. That's it. M10.4 is wiring, not rebuilding. If it's already wired, you're done with Slot 1.

Slot 2 · wire one Pre-Exam Watch: pick the class.

Pre-Exam Watch (M9.3) fires four nudges per midterm (T-5 days, T-3 days, T-1 day, morning-of), each one running the matching M3.5 study-stack prompt. It's daily-but-mostly-silent: the prompt fires every morning at 7am, but if no exam matches the offset, it outputs "standing down, no exam in range." You barely notice it on weeks without exams.

The M10 wrinkle: most students don't need Pre-Exam Watch for every class. The ones with weekly quizzes don't fit; the ones where you naturally start studying early don't need it. Pick the one class where you most often start studying late: that's the class your Slot 2 Pre-Exam Watch is built for. If two classes equally fit, pick the higher-stakes one.

Slot 2 · the picking-the-class question (run inside your Coach)

I'm setting up one Pre-Exam Watch scheduled task for the M10 Capstone. The automation fires on a calendar trigger when I have an event tagged "EXAM · [Class] · [Type]" within the next 5 days. Help me decide which of my classes this term to wire it to. Look at my syllabi (in your context files). Walk me through: 1. Which classes have multiple high-stakes assessments (midterms, finals, big exams, NOT weekly quizzes)? 2. For each candidate, what's the "I always start studying late" risk level: high / medium / low? 3. Which one would benefit MOST from a 5-day-out runway alarm based on how my terms have gone? 4. Recommend the single class to wire Slot 2 to. One pick. Don't hedge. Then give me the calendar event titles I should add for that class's exams in "EXAM · [Class] · [Type]" format. Just the titles. I'll add them to my calendar myself.

The calendar-tagging convention from M9.3

For Pre-Exam Watch to find your exams, every exam event on your calendar needs the title format: EXAM · [Class] · [Type]. Examples: EXAM · CHEM 102 · Midterm 2, EXAM · POLS 220 · Final, EXAM · SPAN 201 · Oral Exam. Add the events with this title format and Pre-Exam Watch will just find them. Do not tag weekly quizzes "EXAM"; those are not what this automation is for.

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Wiring Slot 2: same as M9.3

Schedule: daily 7:00am, recurring. Cowork Project link: your Coach. Connectors: calendar (must be on). Prompt body: the four prompts from M9.3 (one per offset: T-5 / T-3 / T-1 / morning-of). M9.3 actually sets up four scheduled tasks total; for M10's Slot 2 count them as one slot.

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The morning-of cap from M9.3 still applies

The morning-of prompt is a quick prime: checklist + light review of one or two things you flagged the night before. It is NOT a pep talk, breathing exercise, or affirmation. If your version of the morning-of prompt has drifted into wellness language, rewind it to the M9.3 spec.

Slot 3 · pick one of the M9.2 variants (or leave it open).

Three honest descriptions of the variants so you can pick. Don't try to do all three. Pick the one that maps to a real pain in your Panel 1 map; if none does, leave Slot 3 empty.

📰 Daily Brief: for: anchor-needers

Fires weekday mornings (~7:30am). Reads your calendar for today, your top 3 carry-over items from the latest Sunday Reset, and any flagged Coach memory. Outputs a 4–6 line "here's your day." Pick this if your problem is "I open my laptop in the morning and don't know what to do first." Skip this if your problem is "I have too much input in the morning already." (M9.2 variant)

🌇 Friday Wind-Down: for: open-loop closers

Fires Friday 5pm. Walks you through Shipped / Still Open / Carried Into Next Week / Log Off Check. Strictly productivity. Closes the work week cleanly so weekend you doesn't carry low-grade anxiety about Monday. Pick this if your problem is "Sunday Reset feels too late; I spend all weekend worrying about open loops." (M9.2 variant)

📆 App Deadline Tracker: for: application-season students

Fires the 1st of every month. Reads your application tracker (Coach context file, or layered into your calendar from M8.1). Outputs This Month's Deadlines / Priority This Week / Haven't-Touched Alert / Next-Month Peek. Pick this if you're in active application season (college, internship, scholarship, transfer). Skip if you're not currently applying anywhere; turn it on later. (M9.2 variant)

The "leave it empty for now" option is allowed

Three slots. One mandatory (Sunday Reset). Two flexible. If you only set up two, you've still done the Capstone correctly. Slot 3 will fill itself in later: when finals approach, when application season opens, when the third pain point emerges. M10 doesn't grade you on whether all three are running; it cares whether the ones that are running are actually serving you.

Workbook · your Three Scheduled Tasks panel.

Lock in your three slots. This panel is the honest record of what's running on your account, useful for 10.6's test drive and for the every-semester re-audit habit from M9.1.

Workbook · Panel 3 of 5

Your Three Scheduled Tasks

Three slots, wired, named, dated.

Slot 1 · Sunday Reset (mandatory) Wired ☐ · schedule confirmed: Sun 6pm, Coach linked, calendar on First fire date: ____________ Anything I customized from the M9.2 default: ____________

Slot 2 · Pre-Exam Watch · class chosen Class wired to: __________________________ Why this class (in one line): __________________________ EXAM events on calendar · count tagged so far: ___ Wired ☐ · all four offsets (T-5 / T-3 / T-1 / morning-of) saved as scheduled tasks

Slot 3 · pick one (or leave empty) My pick: ☐ Daily Brief ☐ Friday Wind-Down ☐ App Deadline Tracker ☐ leaving empty for now Why this one (or why empty): __________________________ Wired ☐ · schedule + Cowork Project link + connectors confirmed

My re-audit reminder: when am I checking back to see which of these still earned its keep? Date: ____________ (suggested: 6 weeks from today, then end-of-semester)

M9.1's "ignored 3 times in a row" rule still applies. If you find yourself ignoring a slot's output three weeks running, pause it. The fact that you ignored it is data.

📸 Screenshot once filled, piece 3 of your keepsake.

Up next: 10.5: Your "Start Here" Prompt Library

Coach is tuned. Three tasks are wired. Now we build the vault: the 10 prompts you find yourself running over and over, named and saved as starter prompts inside your Coach so you can surface them in a couple of clicks. 10.5 also sets up the third Cowork Project (Personal) for the few prompts that don't belong inside Coach. Bring your Panel 1 map.

Continue to 10.5 — Prompt Library →