Visual walkthrough from wake-up to shutdown complete. Tiago Forte's inbox system + Cal Newport's time blocks + Claude.
Ethan has 4 Gmail accounts. Here's how we can connect them — and what we recommend.
While Ethan sleeps (he's up at 9), a single scheduled task fires in his one Claude session. It scans all 4 Gmail accounts in sequence using 4 Gmail MCP connectors — reads every unread email, categorizes it, drafts replies, flags P0s, and builds a clickable brief for each inbox.
There's no separate dashboard or website. No switching accounts. One Claude Cowork session with 4 Gmail MCP connectors. The scheduled task scans all 4 inboxes, and the briefs appear as Claude's message in the chat. Ethan opens the app, everything is right there.
Ethan wakes up at 9, opens his one Claude session → all 4 briefs are already in the chat, one after another. Pod Plug first, then Personal, Vendpreneurs, Black Label. Each brief has its own P0s, drafts, and batch archive links. All Gmail links clickable.
Same flow for each account. Open brief → handle P0s → batch archive → review drafts → next brief. Ethan doesn't want to spend more than 20 min here.
Cal Newport: "Instead of trying to generally be productive, you partition your time into blocks and assign specific work to them." 30-min minimum increments. Day runs 10 AM – 7:30 PM. Claude generates Column 1 based on today's calendar + top 3 tasks from TASKS.md.
Claude generates the time-block schedule in the chat AND creates real Google Calendar events for each block. So Ethan sees his blocks everywhere — phone, watch, laptop.
Cal Newport: "The goal is not to stick to your original schedule no matter what. It's to always have an intentional plan." When something comes up — Ethan messages Claude and gets a new schedule in seconds.
Cal Newport's "collection columns" — a place to jot tasks and ideas that pop up during a time block. Instead of a notebook, Ethan just messages Claude. Claude writes it to TASKS.md instantly. No context switching — 5 seconds and back to work.
A scheduled task fires at 7:00 PM in Ethan's Claude session. Claude automatically pulls all the data — inbox status across all 4 accounts, calendar (-1/+1 week), today's captured tasks, TASKS.md backlog — and walks Ethan through each step. Ethan just reviews and confirms. Claude does the heavy lifting.
Newport: "If something's important to you, track it. This simple habit can inject much more intentional behavior into your daily schedule."
Not scheduled — Ethan just prompts Claude whenever he feels like dumping. Could be morning, midday, or evening. Two parts: the "Recently I've been..." free-write (10+ bullets) and 5 reflection questions (1 sentence max each). Everything gets saved to a document that Trisha picks up to write content from.
These live on Google Calendar as recurring events. Claude knows about them and builds around them when time-blocking each day.
Tiago Forte's weekly review — systematically processing every inbox, project, and area of responsibility. Claude automates the scanning, Ethan does the thinking.
Dickie Bush's monthly review framework. Block 60 minutes to slowly process the month — 5 questions, each for a specific reason.