The multi-context problem most productivity tools ignore
Most productivity systems are built for one version of your life. They assume one job, one set of priorities, one kind of work to track.
But a lot of people live across multiple contexts simultaneously. A project manager running large-scale engineering projects might also be consulting independently, taking AI courses in the evenings, and trying to make sense of all of it through journaling. Each context generates different information, different tasks, different things worth capturing.
Standard tools fail here. A to-do list can't tell you which of forty items belong to which part of your life. A notes app captures things but doesn't surface what matters. And none of them can read back your week and tell you where your energy went — or where AI could have helped.
From a dead visual app to something that actually works
For one project manager and independent consultant based in Vancouver — someone who manages large mining projects and consults independently during a sabbatical — the path to xTiles started with a loss. He'd been using Walling: a visual, tile-based workspace that matched how his brain worked. When Walling stopped updating and effectively died, he went looking for an equivalent.
xTiles was the natural replacement: similar tile-and-block architecture, but with practical daily features. The one that clicked first was the Web Clipper. Rather than bookmarking links, it now captures actual content with AI-generated summaries — "rather than just keep clipping bookmarks and links, to actually have some summaries and some text. I've started to use that a lot."
But what changed his workflow most came later: connecting Claude to xTiles via the xTiles MCP integration and discovering what the two could do together.
The AI daily review system
The core of his setup is a daily digest powered by voice recordings. Throughout the day he uses an app called Voice Notes to capture class notes, brain dumps, meeting transcripts, and journal entries — spoken, not typed.
Voice Notes connects to Claude via MCP. At the end of each day, a Claude skill — a detailed, refined prompt he's iterated over time — processes those recordings and produces:
- A summary of what he recorded and learned
- Identified opportunities to apply AI in his work or consulting
- A read on his mood and energy across the day
- Productivity patterns — what went well and what disrupted his focus
That output goes directly into his xTiles daily planner as tiles — one per voice recording, each with a concise summary. The result is less a log and more a debrief.
"It's like a little coach reading back my day — my mood, where I was productive, where I could use AI more. Scarily accurate." Project manager and independent consultant (xTiles user)
He also runs a weekly version: Claude pulls everything together — calendars, emails, xTiles tasks, the week's voice recordings — and generates a digest that identifies action items, successes, and open opportunities. It even surfaces new business or product ideas by finding patterns across his own activities. (xTiles ships a pre-built Morning Digest workflow you can use as a starting point.)
Why a skill beats a prompt
One of the most important insights from his workflow: a detailed Claude skill produces far more consistent output than a freeform prompt typed each time.
A skill is a saved, specific prompt — a full specification of what you want, how you want it formatted, and what context to use. Rather than re-typing instructions each day, the skill runs identically every time. "A fully detailed skill outputs so much more consistently than just a short prompt."
He goes one step further: he uses Claude to help build and refine the skills themselves. Describe what you want the output to look like, have Claude draft the skill, iterate until the output is right. "Building its own skills and refining its own skills — it's very powerful."
Explicit output sections: Tell Claude exactly what to produce — voice note summaries, key learnings, AI opportunities, mood read, top priority for tomorrow. Vague prompts produce vague digests.
Output destination: Include instructions to send output to a specific xTiles project or today's planner page. The skill should complete end-to-end without any manual step.
Mood and energy as a dimension: Asking Claude to assess your emotional state from your recordings is surprisingly accurate — and more useful than a pure task summary.
Schedule it: Via Claude Code routines or Cowork scheduled tasks, the digest can run at 3–4am so it's ready before you start work.
xTiles as context: the other direction
The digest runs one way: Claude reads your recordings and writes structured output into xTiles. But the integration works the other way too — and that's where it gets more powerful.
He shared links to three active xTiles projects with Claude and asked for feedback on all three simultaneously. Claude read every tile, synthesized across the projects, and produced analysis that would have been impossible working with one document at a time. "You're tying two or three different pieces of information together — it's the AI doing the analysis."
This bidirectional pattern — Claude reading xTiles for context, writing output back into xTiles — turns the workspace into an active part of your thinking rather than a passive store. You stop re-explaining your situation in every Claude conversation because the context is already there, organized and accessible.
He used the same pattern to build a cash flow model: Claude read his project context, then built an Excel spreadsheet with all the formulas. "In an hour it built what would probably take me weeks."
How to set up your own AI daily review
Pick a voice recording app with Claude MCP support
Voice Notes is one option that connects directly to Claude via MCP. Any transcription tool that can feed text into Claude will work. The goal: your spoken thoughts become text Claude can process daily without any manual export step.
Create a daily page structure in xTiles My Planner
In My Planner, each day has its own page. Use it as the destination for your daily digest — Claude writes tiles directly into today's planner page. You can also create a separate "Daily Digest" project if you prefer entries to accumulate in one place over time.
Connect Claude to all your relevant data sources
The richer the input, the more useful the digest. Connect Claude to xTiles along with email, calendar, and Slack if relevant. Each connection adds a layer — calendar for what you planned, email for what arrived, xTiles for what you were working on.
Build a skill, not just a prompt
In Claude, create a detailed skill that specifies every output section, the tone, and where to send the result in xTiles. Use Claude to help draft the skill itself, then iterate until the daily output is exactly what you want.
Skill structure example: - Voice note summaries (one tile per recording) - Key learnings from the day - Where AI could have helped - Mood and energy read - Top priority for tomorrow → Output: My Planner > [today] > new tiles
Schedule it to run before your workday starts
Use Claude Code routines or Cowork scheduled tasks to run the digest automatically at 3–4am or 30 minutes before you start. When you open your planner in the morning, the review is already waiting. No manual trigger, no friction.