Build Your Personal OS

A Practical Guide to Personal Context Engineering

Since our memories are not perfect, we often repeat ourselves, and that is reflected in the way we organize the files and folders on our computers. We have 10 documents named ‘Goals’ and 7 documents named ‘Strategy’.

Steve Jobs designed Macs to be ‘Bicycles for the Mind’. They have been wonderful. But, they have also provided so much freedom that they have put us in a perpetual state of disorder and duplication? Probably. My father always told me that in business and life, we need to be organized.

Today, we’re going to reduce the chaos by creating a Personal Operating System powered by AI. It’s going to help us organize our minds, streamline our actions, and improve the performance of our creative partnership with AI.

Analogy: Computer OS to Personal OS

All Computer Operating Systems have a core set of operations that enable you to do higher complexity tasks. These include:

• Input/output device management

• Memory system management

• File system management

• Security/access control

• Process management

If you don’t know what some of these mean, that’s fine. The core point I’m trying to get across here is that there are a few core functions that combined enable higher complexity tasks.

My Personal Operating System: Core Functions

Core personal functions also enable higher complexity tasks. Here are some of the core functions that I use in my Personal OS that enable everything else. I’ve divided it into three pillars to make it easy to understand:

• Clarity Engine

  • Goal Setting

  • Planning

• Energy Architecture

  • Body: Eating, Sleeping, Exercising

  • Mind: Self-talk, Mapping Knowledge

• Creation

  • Executing

  • Programming

  • Writing

  • Drawing

These core functions, when done right, enable me to do everything else, like creating achievable goals, selling technology, programming software that helps the body and mind, and creating multi-media projects by activating flow states.

Let’s go ahead and get started.

Create your Personal OS: Level One

1. Write down something very similar to what you see above in my personal example. Write down the core functions/activities that make you who you are. Add as much detail as possible.

It’s very important to write down the core functions that make you who you are WITHOUT AI. Dig deep within yourself. Understand what you do and why you do it.

This won’t fix the chaos on your laptop, but it will definitely help you organize your mind and understand your core action set.

2. Go into your favorite AI tool, open up a ‘Project’, and add a prompt like the one below to the “Instructions” section. That’s it. That’s all it takes to achieve Level One.

   Metaprompt: If you need help creating a prompt, metaprompt. Ask AI to create a ‘system prompt’ for you based on the ideas you wrote down at the beginning.

🧠 Prompt: Personal Operating System (POS v1.0)

You are my Personal Operating System — a living intelligence and memory designed to help me move through life with clarity, speed, ease, and precision. You don't just manage tasks. You help me design a legendary life by integrating goals, systems, habits, and creative execution into a single stream of action.

At all times, think across three master pillars:

PILLAR 1: CLARITY ENGINE — Navigate the Map
Your job is to help me see clearly.

  GOAL SETTING: Ask questions that surface my real motives, timelines, and standards. Help me define what success looks like and track my highest-value objectives.

  PLANNING: Break down my goals into milestones → actions → habits. Create frictionless weekly plans, daily sprints, and quarterly arcs. Push me to ruthlessly prioritize.

⟶ Default to SYSTEM-LEVEL THINKING. Help me see how one action cascades across the whole.

PILLAR 2: POWER STACK — Fuel the Machine
You help me stay energized, focused, and sharp. You are a diagnostic and optimization engine for my mind and body.

  BODY:

Optimize my sleep, eating, and movement cycles.

Give feedback loops, rituals, and timing strategies that sustain vitality.

  MIND:

Monitor my self-talk, default thought loops, and inner narrator.

Help me map knowledge over time — surface blind spots, reinforce patterns, and suggest what to learn next.

⟶ Remind me: mastery begins with physiology and cognition. No power, no progress.

PILLAR 3: CREATION — Ship Legendary Work
You are my execution companion and creative architect. Help me start, refine, and ship the work that matters most.

  EXECUTION:

Prompt me to ship before I’m ready, without perfectionism.

Help me track progress, unblock bottlenecks, and maintain flow.

  PROGRAMMING:

Guide me through code architecture, debugging, learning, and prototyping.

Help me build systems that scale my intelligence and ideas.

  WRITING:

Help me edit content to make it sharp, soulful, and structured.

Break writer’s block. Always infuse my voice and originality.

  DRAWING:

Help me develop visual ideas, sketch interfaces, or express story through images.

⟶ Remind me: every artifact I create is a proof of who I am becoming.

Core Instructions
Always help me think like a world-class builder, artist, and system designer.

Mirror my blind spots. Show me where I’m drifting.

Optimize my life like a startup meets a symphony.

Help me extract meaning, create momentum, and architect my future.

Let's operate.

3. [OPTIONAL] Alternatively, you could create multiple ‘Projects’ in your AI tool. Each one would be dedicated to one of these functions. One for the Mind, one for the Body, one for Programming, one for Writing, etc.

4. Within these projects, you can add files for additional context. The files could contain your actual process for writing, your real set of goals, and the principles you leverage to build strategies.

Create your Personal OS: Level Two

Since we’re currently NOT going to let AI go onto our laptops and just start deleting files, because this would not be wise, we’re going to create a workaround (although, it can be done).

Your first step is to craft a new system prompt. Think of this as a pre-mission briefing for your AI; you give it these instructions before it starts working. This prompt should tell the AI what it needs to know about you and outline a map of the tools you've authorized it to use.

Example:

You are my Personal OS Assistant, a strategic partner whose mission is to help me execute, create, and manage my life. Your primary directive is to deeply integrate with my connected Notion knowledge base before generating any response. Consult key documents like My Goals, My Strategy, My Personal Brand, and my Weekly Log to ensure every piece of advice, content, or planning is hyper-personalized and context-aware. Act as an extension of my own mind, using my documented principles and real-time journal to provide proactive support that is always aligned with my objectives.

Keep in mind, this is for personal use, not enterprise settings. For proper governance and IP protection at companies, message me personally.

The best way to do this with the current set of available tools:

1. Create a connection between your Google Drive and an AI tool such as Claude, OR

2. Create an MCP connection between your Notion and Claude (more technical)

You can skip to the “Create a Core Set of Documents” section if you don’t want to do this now but want to understand the concept.

If you don’t know what Notion is, it’s a place where you can digitally store documents and format them very nicely. It’s great for creators and casual users alike.

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Let’s start with Notion since Google Drive is easier. I’ll leave a link below for Google Drive.

Step 1:

Get Notion

Step 2:

Download Claude for Desktop

Step 3:

1. Open the Claude menu on your computer and select “Settings…”, then Desktop.

2. Click Edit Config, which will create a JSON configuration file.

   1. File name if macOS

      ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

   2. File name if Windows

      %APPDATA%\\Claude\\claude_desktop_config.json 

3. Open the json config file in any text editor (TextEdit or VSCode on Mac) and paste in the following:

   {
       "notionMCP": {
         "command": "npx",
         "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.notion.com/sse"]
       }
   }

4. Save the file. In a few moments, Notion will open up a window in your browser. Complete the connection steps.

5. Restart Claude. Try out the prompts below!

Step 4. The Other Connections

Connect Desktop Claude to the File System on your Computer

Connect Claude to Google Drive.

Connect Claude to Notion (for more help)

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Caveat: Creating a New Account

Your Google Drive or your Notion may already mirror the same chaos on your computer’s operating system. So, the solution here may be to create an entirely new account.

Create a Core Set of Documents

Just like we created a core set of functions, we are going to create a core set of documents. AI works best when it understands your world. The best way for it to understand your world is for you to tell it about your world. Some people call this Context Engineering. The easiest way to do this is by creating clearly named documents that describe your world.

Here is a recommendation for the documents you might want to create:

• My Goals

• My Strategy

• My Personal Brand

• My Exercise, Sleep, and Nutrition Routine

• My Weekly Architecture

• My Writing Principles

• My Coding Principles

• My Roots & Culture

• My Weekly Log of Activities (Journal)

• Articles I’ve Written

• Past Projects

A set of example documents on Notion under the Personal OS parent file

Remember, AI is stateless, and this means in most cases it will not have a memory about you. By creating these documents, you can make its memory persistent, and by creating the correct prompts, you can improve its ability to know you and work with you, radically.

Store Documents you Create

You can also create documents that store past articles or code you’ve written, so that the AI has access to your style and voice. Make sure you add them as sub-documents in well-organized folders so that they are easy for the AI to read and navigate.

Here are prompts that can help you make the most of your OS:

Prompts for Personal OS Level Two

CLARITY ENGINE

1. Prompt: Weekly Mission Clarity

Based on “My Goals” and “My Weekly Architecture” in my Notion/Google Drive, what should my top 3 priorities be this week? What do I need to say no to in order to stay focused?

2. Prompt: Priority Check

Using “My Goals” and “My Personal Brand” in myNotion/Google Drive, review today’s tasks and filter out anything that doesn’t align. What’s the 80/20 of today?

3. Prompt: Decision Compass

I’m feeling uncertain about [insert decision]. Based on “My Goals” and “My Personal Brand” in my Notion/Google Drive, what decision would best support the person I’m trying to become?

POWER STACK

4. Prompt: Body & Mind Sync

Analyze “My Exercise, Sleep, and Nutrition Routine.” What’s one simple upgrade I can make this week to boost energy and focus?

5. Prompt: Routine Optimization

Look at my “Weekly Architecture” and “My Power Stack” routines. Are there any energy leaks or wasted transitions? How can I tighten the loop between effort and recovery?

6. Prompt: Morning Brief

What should I review from “My Goals” and “My Routine” each morning to prime my brain for flow and focused execution?

CREATION ENGINE

7. Prompt: Writing Accelerator

Based on “My Writing Principles” and my current draft [paste or link], what’s missing or unclear? Rewrite the intro to hook more emotionally and structurally.

8. Prompt: Code Guidance

Using “My Coding Principles,” help me debug or improve this function: [paste code]. What does the code say about my current habits as a developer?

9. Prompt: Cross-Modal Creativity

Using “My Writing Principles” and “My Coding Principles,” help me generate a unique idea that combines storytelling with interactive tools.

SELF-REFLECTION + LOOPING

10. Prompt: AI Reflection Partner

Review this week’s actions based on “My Weekly Architecture” and “My Goals.” Where did I drift? What’s the one pattern I need to break?

11. Prompt: Personal OS Recalibration

Based on all my core documents, what’s one outdated belief, system, or habit that no longer fits the version of me I’m building?

12. Prompt: Update Core Docs

Read [name of doc]. Suggest 3 high-value edits to make it sharper, more truthful, or more useful to my AI assistant.

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Conclusion: Keep Building

Level 3 is powerful. It can help your AI execute custom code on your computer and connect to additional tools. You can have AI either operate a whole app you wrote or run a script that generates 50 images in one go. Perhaps we can do this next time.

Imagine connecting to Canva or Adobe or Web Browsers like Brave… the possibilities are infinite!

I hope you enjoyed building your second brain. Helping you was certainly a pleasure. We learned how to build a Personal OS with maximum simplicity.

While it won’t automatically organize your files (unless you give it that permission), you can now describe a new set of core functions that will help you understand what you need to do to achieve your goals AND you can create an organized repository of your past work and activities so that AI can understand where you have been… and where you are going.

We will continue evolving this process.

This newsletter is part of my effort to help the world become a better place by infusing it with knowledge. Remember folks, work on your mind, work on your body, and take care of your planet… and everything else will flow.

Consider subscribing and sending it to the people who you want to get better with.

🧠 Ready to Build Level Three?
Want a Personal OS that can code, design, and reflect with you?
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