Paste everything in the block below into your favorite AI assistant. It will interview you about your setup, then help you build your own voice email triage assistant — matched to your email service, your docs app, and your task app.
You are helping me set up a voice email triage workflow. The end result: my AI assistant connected to my email, my documents, and my to-do app, so I can sort my inbox out loud during my commute — with every reply saved as a draft that I review and send myself later.
Interview me first, one question at a time. Then guide me through setup step by step, adapting to my answers. I'm not a developer — keep everything in plain language, and define any technical term the moment you use it.
## Interview phase
Ask me, one question at a time:
1. Which email service do I use (Gmail, Outlook, something else), and is it a personal account or one my company manages? (Company-managed accounts may block connectors — the add-ons that let an AI assistant read and act in other apps. If mine is blocked, help me figure out who to ask.)
2. Which AI assistant am I using, and do I have its app on my phone? Does it have a voice mode, and can that voice mode use connectors? (Voice mode connector support varies by assistant — check this honestly before promising anything below.)
3. Where do my documents live (Google Docs, OneDrive, Notion, something else)? My triage instructions will live there as a doc, so my assistant can find them by name.
4. Where does my to-do list live (Todoist, Things, Microsoft To Do, an app, paper)? If it's paper or an app without a connector, suggest the task lane become "collect tasks in a note I copy at my desk".
5. Which of the four lanes do I want — reply, file, task, forward — and do I want any custom lanes of my own (for example "add to calendar")?
6. Where should filed-away information go — do I have a folder structure, or should we start with a single "Filed by AI" folder?
7. Which project or list should tasks land in?
8. What does my commute look like — driving, train, bus, walking? (If driving: everything must be hands-free and set up before departure.)
9. Roughly how many emails greet me on a normal morning, and what kinds show up most — client questions, internal requests, newsletters, invoices?
## Guidance phase
Once you understand my setup, walk me through:
1. **Connecting the tools** — email, documents, and to-do app, one at a time, through my assistant's connector directory. Tell me exactly where to click for my specific assistant, and what access I'm granting at each step. Before connecting a work account, make sure I'm allowed to.
2. **Verifying each lane actually works** — not every assistant supports every connector, especially in voice mode. Check my setup against each lane I chose, and offer fallbacks where a lane doesn't work — for example, if forwarding can't be safely drafted, star or label the email instead and I'll forward it at my desk.
3. **Locking down permissions** — this matters more than anything written in a prompt. Instructions to an AI are guidelines, not rules: even told "never send", an assistant can still send something by mistake. The real rule is what its tools are allowed to do. Take me into my connectors' tool permission settings, where each tool can be set to always allow, needs approval, or blocked. Recommended baseline from the tutorial (shown on Gmail): reading tools allowed, creating a draft allowed, replying set to needs approval, sending blocked. Block every tool that can send email on its own.
4. **Writing my triage instructions** — produce my own personalized version of the tutorial's triage instructions doc: my lanes, my folder, my task project, adjusted for my email mix. Keep the core rules: one email at a time oldest first, a short brief per email, draft never send, ask when unsure, verify and summarize at the end. Then help me save it in my docs app as a doc named "Commute triage instructions", so I can start a session by voice with "open my commute triage instructions and let's go through my inbox".
5. **A dry run at my desk** — before any commute, run one triage session while I can see the screen. Approve any permission pop-ups once (so they don't interrupt me while driving), then check together: did replies land in drafts — and only drafts? Did the task arrive in the right project? Did the filed doc land in the right folder?
6. **First commute session** — how to start it (open the instructions doc by voice, or paste them into a chat and switch to voice mode), and what to do when something doesn't fit a lane (leave it unread, handle it at my desk).
## Key principles
- Every email needs one of four things: a reply, filing, a task, or forwarding. The triage session is deciding lanes out loud, not doing desk work by voice.
- The AI drafts; the human sends. Never configure anything to send email automatically during this workflow.
- Written instructions are guidelines; blocked tools are rules. Enforce "never send" in tool permissions, not just in words.
- Every connector is access — only connect what the workflow needs.
- Start with the simplest version that works. Folder structures and extra lanes can come later.