Last Night's Me Was Thoughtful, This Morning's Bot Got Lost
Every time I finish work on my Windows device, I leave a handoff note so the bot on the Mac mini or another device can read it and pick up where I stopped. The problem was that I wrote those notes far too thoughtfully.
Before
• What I did, where I got stuck, what I learned, and what to do tomorrow were all mixed together in chronological order on one page
• To get its bearings, the bot opened 6 files on average and needed about 12 minutes before its first task
• Some days it even redid work that was already finished, because the word 「resolved」 was buried in the middle of the note
What I changed
I added a fixed three-line block at the very top of the note.
Do first: (one line)
Do not touch: (one line)
Already done: (one line)
Everything else moved down into a 「reference」 section. I also gave the bot one instruction: 「Read the top three lines first, and only look further down if they are not enough.」
After (10 working days each)
• Files opened: from 6 on average to 2
• Time until the first task: from 12 minutes to 4
• Rework on finished items: from 5 cases to 0 over the 10 days
What I learned
A note that is kind to a person is not the same as a note that is kind to a bot. People enjoy following a story, while a bot weighs whatever sits at the top the most. What changed the result was not writing more, but deciding where each piece of information goes.
Now I spend just 30 seconds before bed: fill in the top three lines, then jot down the rest as far as I remember. Even the time spent writing the note got shorter.