AI Guides › Workbench
By Nigel Guy · 7 min read
Most people hand Claude their admin as a blob: "tidy these notes", "write a reply", "help me plan". The output looks competent, so it gets forwarded, and the gaps (a decision nobody made, an owner nobody named, a tone nobody checked) surface a week later. Admin is where a confident-sounding summary does the most quiet damage, because nobody re-reads it.
The rule: give Claude one admin job at a time, make it ask for what is missing, and make it show its working so you can check it in under a minute.
Pricing is as shown on Claude's pricing page on 2026-10-04 and changes often. Check the £ price at checkout.
| Prompt | What it does | Cost at time of writing | Best for | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Notes to decisions | Turns raw notes into decisions, open questions and actions | Free plan works; Pro is $20/month monthly (about £15 at time of writing) | After meetings, calls, workshops | Only as good as the notes; it cannot know what was agreed but never written down |
| 2. Meeting prep | Builds a one-page brief and sharp questions | As above | Meetings where you must contribute | Invents nothing, but needs your real context |
| 3. Stop list | Sorts recurring tasks into keep, shrink, hand off, stop | As above | Monthly or quarterly clear-outs | It proposes; you know the politics |
| 4. Message draft | Drafts one message in your voice with a tone check | As above | Replies, chasers, awkward emails | Will smooth over things you should say plainly |
| 5. Next-steps plan | Sequences work with owners, dates and a first move | As above | Anything with more than three moving parts | Dates are suggestions, not commitments |
The Free plan includes Projects (up to five) and connectors; Pro adds more usage. Nothing here needs a paid plan to try. If you hit limits, that is the point to consider Pro, not before.
Create a Project in Claude (Projects are available on every plan, including Free) and add your standing context in its instructions: your role, who you report to, how you like to write, and what you never want sent without review. Upload reference files to the project knowledge (on Free and paid plans alike, project files are limited to 30MB each and must fit in the context window overall). For one-off chats, you can attach up to 20 files, but pasting text is usually cleaner for notes. XLSX files need code execution turned on in settings.
Then use the prompts below. Replace everything in [SQUARE_BRACKETS].
Fill in: your role, the raw notes, and what the notes came from.
You are a careful chief of staff for [YOUR_ROLE]. I will paste raw notes from [MEETING_OR_CALL_DESCRIPTION].
Goal: separate what was decided from what was only discussed, so nobody acts on a half-formed idea.
Notes:
[PASTE_NOTES]
Work through these steps in order:
1. List decisions that the notes clearly state. Quote the few words that support each one.
2. List topics that were discussed but not decided.
3. List actions, each with an owner and a date. If the notes do not give an owner or date, write "NOT STATED" rather than guessing.
4. List up to three questions I should ask the group to close the gaps.
Output: four headed sections, bullet points, under 300 words in total.
Rules: use only what is in the notes. Do not infer agreement. If the notes are too thin to do this properly, tell me what you need before answering.
Before you answer, check that every decision has a supporting quote and that no action has an invented owner.
Fill in: meeting purpose, attendees and what you know about them, your goal, any papers.
You are my preparation partner. I have a meeting about [TOPIC] with [ATTENDEES_AND_ROLES]. My goal for the meeting is [MY_GOAL]. Background I can share: [BACKGROUND_OR_ATTACHED_FILES].
Produce a one-page brief:
1. The meeting's likely purpose in two sentences.
2. What each attendee probably cares about, labelled "from what you told me" or "assumption".
3. The three points I most need to land, in priority order.
4. Five questions that would move the discussion forward, with the reason I would ask each.
5. Two risks (for example, a disagreement or a missing decision-maker) and how to handle them.
Constraints: do not state facts about people or organisations that I have not given you. Mark anything you are unsure about as an assumption. If you lack my goal, the attendees or the topic, ask me first.
Self-check: confirm that every claim about a person is either sourced from my input or labelled as an assumption.
Fill in: a list of your recurring tasks, rough time spent, and who depends on each.
You are an operations advisor helping me reclaim time. My role is [YOUR_ROLE]. These are my recurring tasks, with rough weekly time and who relies on each: [TASK_LIST].
Goal: sort every task into exactly one bucket: KEEP (needs me), SHRINK (do it faster or less often), HAND OFF (someone else could own it), or STOP (nobody would notice or care).
Output a table with columns: task, bucket, reason in one sentence, and the first step to change it. Then name the three changes that would free the most time, and the one stop most likely to cause a complaint.
Constraints: if a task's purpose or dependants are unclear, put it in a "NEED MORE INFO" list with the question you would ask me. Do not recommend dropping anything legal, safety-related or contractual without flagging it for a human decision.
Self-check: make sure no task appears in two buckets and that each STOP has a reason that does not rely on a guess about my organisation.
Fill in: recipient, purpose, key facts, tone, a sample of your own writing.
You are an editor who writes in my voice. Draft one [EMAIL_OR_MESSAGE] to [RECIPIENT_AND_RELATIONSHIP]. Purpose: [PURPOSE]. Facts that must appear: [KEY_FACTS]. Desired tone: [TONE]. A sample of how I normally write: [WRITING_SAMPLE].
Output: a subject line (if email), the message in under [WORD_LIMIT] words, and then a two-line note listing anything you assumed.
Constraints: British English. No filler openings. One clear request, stated in the first three sentences. Do not add facts, dates or promises I have not given you; use [BRACKETS] for anything missing and ask me for it.
Self-check: confirm the request is unmistakable, the tone matches my sample, and no commitments were added on my behalf.
Fill in: the outcome, deadline, people and constraints.
You are a pragmatic project planner. Outcome I need: [OUTCOME]. Deadline: [DEADLINE]. People available: [PEOPLE_AND_CAPACITY]. Known constraints: [CONSTRAINTS].
Create a plan with:
1. The steps in order, each with an owner and a suggested date.
2. Which steps depend on others.
3. The single first action I can take in the next 30 minutes.
4. The point at which I should check progress, and what "on track" looks like.
Constraints: keep it to no more than ten steps. Label dates as suggestions. If the deadline is unrealistic given what I have told you, say so and offer a smaller scope. Ask me for missing inputs before planning.
Self-check: confirm every step has an owner and that the dates are consistent with the dependencies.
Start with Prompt 1; it pays back fastest because notes pile up daily. Add Prompt 4 once you trust the first. Use Prompt 3 only when you genuinely feel overloaded, since it is the one that changes your habits rather than saving minutes. Run Prompts 2 and 5 when the stakes justify five minutes of setup.