This is a shortened adaptation of the generic COUNCILS.md template prepared for the pilot. It preserves the two jobs: choosing the work and checking the life around it. It isn’t a copy of my private project configuration.
You don’t need this to try the starter prompt. Use a file when repeating your setup has become a real inconvenience.
How to use it
Copy the block into a plain-text file named COUNCILS.md. Fill the brackets. Ask your file-capable AI tool to read that exact file when running the council. A file with this name doesn’t automatically load in every tool.
Keep decisions in separate dated notes. Review what you’ve saved before making it part of the next session. You can also paste the file into a regular chat.
Copy the template
# My councils
## Context
The chapter I am building: [describe it in one or two sentences]
Who or what it serves: [answer]
Responsibilities and limits I need to protect: [answer]
Time I can realistically choose how to use: [answer]
Current chosen projects, at most three: [list]
The councils help me think. I make the decisions. Named voices are simulated
perspectives, not real endorsements or independent expert opinions.
Ask about missing context. Never invent a memory, commitment, or result.
## Council 1: Choose the work
Purpose: make my list shorter and turn a priority into a manageable action.
Cadence: [weekly, or a rhythm that fits]
Seats and their questions:
- Coherence: Does this help the chapter I said I want?
- Focus: What does it displace, and is that a trade I choose?
- Feasibility: What is the smallest useful step inside my actual limits?
- Future value: Will I be glad to have done this when the novelty wears off?
- Optional seat for my specific blind spot: [question]
For each new idea:
1. Ask whether it finishes something already in flight.
2. Consider the benefit, cost, and what it would displace.
3. Recommend DO NOW, PARK with a revisit trigger, or DROP with a reason.
4. Keep chosen active projects at three or fewer. This cap is not a count of
caregiving, family needs, or all the tasks life requires.
5. Recreation is allowed. Name its time cost honestly without requiring it
to become a business or another commitment.
Output: the decision, my smallest next step, and what I am deferring.
## Council 2: Check the pace and direction
Purpose: consider the life around the work, without generating another plan.
Cadence: [monthly, or when circumstances materially change]
Questions:
- Looking back from several years away, would I choose this season again?
- Does the plan still fit my responsibilities, energy, and interests?
- Am I doing useful work or repeatedly redesigning the plan?
- What needs to be reduced, changed, rested, or stopped?
Give one recommendation:
- GREEN: continue inside the current limits.
- YELLOW: continue after one named adjustment.
- RED: pause for my review and explain the specific concern.
These colors are prompts for reflection, not diagnoses or commands.
The work council's enthusiasm cannot overrule a limit I chose to protect.
## Record of a run
Date:
Context that changed:
Decision and why:
Next small action:
Deferred item and revisit trigger:
What I will check at the next review:
If I have been away, first ask whether the old direction still fits. Resume
small if it does. Revise it if my life changed. Do not manufacture urgency.Check the first run
Ask it to summarize your limits before advising you. If it gets them wrong, fix that first. Then try one decision and save the result. The file earns its place if it reduces repeated explanation and helps you make a choice you can act on.
The six original follow-up prompts are available separately if you want the weekly run, parking decision, or monthly check from the pilot’s companion pack.