Workflows & Recurring Tasks

The Bandwidth Problem — Working IN vs. ON the Business

Most founders are running at 10–20% available bandwidth for strategic work. The rest is consumed by operational tasks — filming, scripting, handling support, writing proposals, taking sales calls, managing deliveries. You're working in the business constantly, and you never have enough time to work on it.

The cliché is true: spending all your time keeping the flow going means you're not doing anything to actually move forward. And then you wonder why things aren't growing. The goal of everything we're building is to shrink that in-business load down as far as possible.

The Task Audit — Map What You Currently Do

Before you build a single automation, get everything you currently do out onto paper. Not what you could do, not what you want to do — what you are actually doing right now, day to day, that takes up your time.

Here's an example of what a real task audit looks like across a business with multiple functions. Map your own version before you decide what to automate:

Once you have your list, sort each task into: augment (AI helps me do it faster) or automate (AI does it without me). The distinction determines which type of workflow to build.

Two Types of Workflows

Every task on your list falls into one of two buckets. Most things start as augmented and graduate to automated once you've refined them enough to trust the output without being in the loop.

Augmented Workflows — Slash Commands

Augmented workflows live in your .claude/commands/ folder as markdown files. You invoke them with a slash prefix. They walk you through a structured process — asking questions, pulling context, doing research, producing outputs — while keeping you in the loop for judgment calls.

Any task on your audit list that requires your creative input or judgment — content ideation, proposal writing, strategic planning — is a candidate for an augmented slash command. Build the methodology once, run it many times.

Skills vs. Commands — Which to Use

Both are invocable with a slash prefix. The difference is weight and structure. For most workflows, a slash command is the right choice. Skills are for when you need to bundle reference materials, examples, or scripts alongside the workflow itself.

Automated Workflows — Cron Jobs & Triggers

Once a workflow is refined to the point where you trust the output without being in the loop, you disconnect yourself from it. It runs on a schedule or fires on an event. You review results. Two mechanisms to know:

A Real Cron Schedule — What's Actually Running

Here's the actual automated schedule running inside a live business. This is what "work happens while you sleep" looks like in practice. Each job was built as an augmented workflow first, refined over many runs, then wired to a cron.

/explore — From Idea to Built Automation

When you have a new automation idea but aren't sure how to build it or what's technically feasible, /explore is your starting point. It takes you from a rough description through a structured discovery process — producing a full exploration document you can then hand to a fresh implementation agent.

Memory & Workspace Health

Two things that become important as your workspace grows: Claude's memory filling up (costing you token space and intelligence per session), and your workspace structure drifting into disorganized territory (making it hard to find things). Both need ongoing maintenance.

• Claude's memory fills token space. When you run /context, you'll see how many tokens are used by memory vs. tools vs. system. If memory files are bloated, you're giving up intelligence capacity every session. The Sunday memory prune automates the cleanup.
• Memory prune workflow: Export all Claude memory → compare against existing context docs → extract anything valuable and update the context files → wipe memory clean. Result: fresh memory space, no lost learnings, context docs get richer over time.
• Workspace audit: As you ship new commands, plans, and outputs, the workspace accumulates clutter — old plans that were superseded, outputs that should be archived, scripts that are no longer used. A weekly workspace audit cron checks for trash, archives stale files, and confirms the structure is still navigable.
• Keep CLAUDE.md in sync. Every time you add a new command, script, or structural change, the workspace can drift from what CLAUDE.md documents. The implement command should include a documentation step — but spot-check CLAUDE.md regularly to ensure it still reflects reality.

What to Remember

Do This Before the Next Session

• Write your task audit. Get everything you currently do on paper. Every business function, every recurring task, every daily thing that takes time. Don't filter — just list. Aim for 20–40 items. This is your automation backlog.
• Separate tasks from initiatives. Go through your list and mark each as: "I currently do this" (task → automate) or "I wish I could do this" (initiative → defer). Move all initiatives to a separate list to tackle when you have freed bandwidth.
• Pick your first augmented slash command. Find the most repetitive task on your list that involves creative input. Use /explore (or /create-plan) to map out what the workflow would look like. Build it. Run it 5 times this week.
• Wire your data collection to a cron (if you haven't). If you set up data OS connectors from the previous session, get them on a 5:30 AM schedule. Start the snapshot clock now. Every day without it is data you'll never have.
• Set up the memory prune cron. Ask Claude Code to set up a weekly Sunday memory prune. It will write the workflow and configure the cron. This is a small thing with compounding returns — a clean, lean context every week.

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