The workflow: meeting notes to xTiles tasks, automatically
Nicole is a solo virtual assistant juggling several active clients, most of them managed through a project-per-client setup in xTiles plus a daily planner built around an ADHD-friendly routine. Claude is connected to xTiles via the native custom connector, set up from account settings — the connection that makes everything in this guide possible, including using xTiles inside a cloud-based Routine rather than only a locally-running Scheduled Task.
The recurring workflow behind this whole setup is simple to describe: after a client call, a meeting-notes tool captures the transcript, and Claude is asked to read that transcript, pull out the action items, and add them to xTiles as tasks — assigned, dated, and prioritized — without retyping anything by hand.
Getting it to work cleanly took some trial and error. Early on, tasks created by Claude weren't showing up on Nicole's own task list — a since-fixed assignment bug that simply hadn't propagated to every version of xTiles yet. The other early lesson was about where Claude writes: adding it as a tile directly on a page made pages messy fast, while pointing Claude specifically at the tasks collection kept things clean and let it set priorities and due dates properly.
The same pattern extends past tasks. Instead of only creating tasks, Claude can be asked to build a short summary page inside a specific client's project — pulling in a client portal's worth of context, action items, and a running history in one place, without touching the daily Planner at all. The prompt only needs a project name or link to know exactly where to write.
Scheduled Tasks vs. Routines: the difference that actually matters
Both features do the same basic job — run a saved prompt on a schedule — but where they run is completely different, and that difference has real consequences.
- Scheduled Tasks run locally. The prompt fires from whatever device set it up, which has to be on and running at the scheduled time. Sleep your laptop, close the lid, or lose your connection, and the task can silently skip its run.
- Routines run in the cloud. Once set up, a Routine executes on Claude's infrastructure, not your machine — no laptop needs to be open, no app needs to be running in the background. You can set it up mid-afternoon and have it run at 5 a.m. while you're asleep.
Because a Routine runs independently of any device, its output is simply waiting for you wherever you open xTiles next — including on your phone. Wake up, open the app, and the tiles from an overnight run are already there, the same way they'd appear if you'd triggered the prompt yourself at your desk.
Setting up your first Routine (including the GitHub step)
The fastest way to build a Routine is to start from a Scheduled Task you already trust. Open the task, copy its full prompt, then switch over to build the Routine version of it.
Copy your existing prompt
Open a Scheduled Task you already use, click edit, and copy the full prompt text — no need to rewrite it from scratch.
Open the Routines tab
In Claude, find the Routines tab (it sits alongside Scheduled Tasks) and start a new Routine. Unlike a Scheduled Task, a Routine only needs a name — no separate description field.
Paste the prompt
Paste in the same instructions. If it needs sharpening, ask Claude itself to tighten the prompt — the same trick that works for any other prompt.
Connect a GitHub repository
This is the step that trips people up: Routines need an execution environment, and that means linking a GitHub account and pointing the Routine at a repository. If you don't have GitHub connected yet, add it from Claude's connector browser, create an account and a first repository if needed, then select that repo as the environment. One repo can host every Routine you create — you don't need a new one per automation.
Set the schedule
Pick a time and frequency — daily, weekdays, or weekly — the same as a Scheduled Task.
Choose connectors
Select only the connectors this specific Routine needs (your meeting-notes tool and xTiles, for example) and leave the rest unchecked — this only removes them from the Routine, not from your account.
Turn off the permission prompt
Routines include a setting to run without asking for confirmation mid-task, since there's no one there to answer it at 5 a.m. Leave it on for a Routine that only reads and organizes information.
The GitHub step is the one genuinely unfamiliar part of this process, and it is worth expecting a little friction there — a repo or connector not showing up immediately, or needing a fresh account. It resolves; if it doesn't on the first try, retry the connector browse a moment later or try a different account.
Token-saving tips: why overnight is the smart time to run
Routines currently run up to five times a day, which is generous for most workflows — a morning brief, a newsletter digest, and an evening reflection cover a full day with room to spare.
The bigger advantage is timing. Usage limits refresh on a rolling window tied to when you're actively chatting with Claude during the day. A Routine scheduled for the middle of the night runs in a window when you aren't using any of that same capacity — so by the time you sit down to work, your daily budget is untouched and the results are already sitting in your Planner.
That headroom is also an opening to use stronger models than you might for a quick daytime chat — Opus rather than a faster, lighter model — since a Routine running overnight isn't competing with anything else for your usage.