The setup trap that stops most planning systems
Sofia found xTiles through the How to ADHD channel and was excited about it, if a little overwhelmed by how many features there are. The goal was specific and very practical: write down the week's to-do list once, and then let AI look at each day's schedule and work out what to focus on in the time that's actually free.
I would set my to-do list for the week, all the things that I would like to accomplish, and then each day it can look at my schedule. Sofia, describing the goal for a daily plan
The idea was never the problem. The risk, as the quote at the top of this page puts it, is the setup: hours spent configuring, a distraction, and a system that never gets used. So the call focused on one thing — getting a working daily plan in place in a single sitting.
What the workflow does
It's a Daily Brief workflow that runs in Claude and writes its results onto your xTiles daily page, so the plan is waiting there before your day starts. For a day-planning brief, that means:
- Your calendar — what's already scheduled today, so the plan works around it.
- Your to-do list — the tasks you've set for the week, so the plan draws from what you actually want to get done.
- A plan for the day — you ask for it in your own words, and Claude proposes what to work on in the time that's free.
- Overdue tasks — anything left from earlier days can be rescheduled to today automatically.
If your days span several calendars — separate businesses, or a personal calendar alongside work — xTiles can bring them together, so a single brief can look at all of them at once.
How to set it up with Claude
Connect xTiles in Claude
In Claude's left sidebar, open Customize, then Connectors (not Plugins), search for xTiles, and connect the official xTiles connector.
Connect the tools the plan should draw on
Add your calendar, such as Google Calendar, plus anything else you'd like included. The workflow reviews the tools you've connected, and Claude asks you to approve access as you go.
Open a new conversation
Start a fresh chat, or use Cowork, which we suggested because it's a more robust place to run a workflow than a plain chat.
Paste the Daily Brief prompt
On the xTiles workflows page, open the Daily Brief card, click Start with Claude, and paste the prompt. In Claude you don't need to mention xTiles by name.
Answer the short form and say what you want
Claude asks which tools to use and, for tools like Slack, which channels to pull from. Add your goal in plain words: plan my day from my weekly to-do list and my calendar.
Review the draft, then say go ahead
Claude drafts the brief first. If it looks right, tell it to go ahead. It asks for a couple of permissions to create content on your daily page, then gives you a link to open it.
Schedule it
Claude suggests running it as a scheduled task, every weekday or every day. Approve that, and the plan is waiting each morning. Here's how scheduling works.
Why one sitting is enough
The setup takes about 10 minutes, once. After that it runs by itself — you don't rebuild it each day, and you don't have to remember to trigger it.
You also don't have to get the wording exactly right the first time. As we put it on the call, you can simply describe the idea — a daily task that creates tiles on your daily page — and refine it later. Sofia's own take was that the first version could be edited afterwards anyway, and it can.
Once Sofia approved the draft during the call, the brief appeared on the daily page, with the day's schedule already in it.
Keep the week's list where the plan can see it
Sofia's own system starts each week by writing down everything to get done. In xTiles, a task with a due date shows up on your weekly and daily pages automatically, so you don't enter the same thing twice. Put the week's list in as tasks, give them dates, and the daily plan has real material to work from.