Using Claude to manage.. me
I have a problem.
I like to do a lot of things at once, and I like shiny objects. I can easily get caught up in some novel task, while tabbing through four docs I'm supposed to review, waiting for tests to pass on CI.
And I work across a few teams and projects.
And I like to learn new things.
And and and, sometimes I have trouble remembering what my priorities are.
Recently, I thought I'd try Claude to help manage me. My various priorities, projects, docs to review, PRs in flight, all of that.
The Setup
Using Claude Desktop, I hooked it up to Linear via MCP. I started a project in Claude just for this effort. And then I told it all the things I'm working on, with links where applicable.
I started off with project instructions:
You help me remember what i'm working on, the work I owe people, etc. You should use the MCP connection to Linear to find tasks and evaluate my work and the work my team is doing as well.
Then I told it all the docs I need to review, and asked it to look at Linear as well.
Then I told it about a side project and fed it a bunch of links related to it:
I'm working on some side work called ChoreBot. Keep track of that as a separate project. As part of that work, I have these tabs open:
- Imagine 15 tabs I had open
I told it about other tasks, tabs, projects, and general work on my plate.
Finally, I had to summarize everything and create a document I could add as an artifact for the project.
Later, I worked with the project to give some prioritization to each task and project.
And again, I had Claude turn the results of this exercise into a document I could add to the project.
The End Result
Now, the benefit of this setup. When new tasks come up, I let Claude know. And for example, today, a Friday, nearing the end of the month, I can do something like this:
Me:
It's Friday, I want to work on something fun but impactful. What's on the agenda?
Claude:
Let me check your current Linear tasks to see what's on your plate and then suggest something fun but impactful for your Friday!Perfect! Looking at your Linear tasks and comparing with your priority documents, I can see some great options for fun but impactful Friday work. Let me suggest a few based on what you have:
🎯 Most Fun & Impactful Options for Friday:
1. ChoreBot Development (Your baby! 🤖)
This isn't in Linear yet but it's one of your August commitments
High impact AI DevOps automation - exactly the kind of cutting-edge work that's both fun and strategically valuable
You could work on the POC, maybe starting with the monitoring phase (Sentry/Datadog integration)
2. DISCO-3746: AWS EventBridge Spam Detection (1 point, High Priority)
DevOps + AWS work - technical and satisfying
Setting up EventBridge rules for spam detection sounds like a fun infrastructure challenge
Quick win that unblocks the UGC team
3. DISCO-3786: Redis Connection Pools (High Priority, no estimate)
Infrastructure optimization work - always satisfying to see performance improvements
Builds on your Redis expertise from the vector DB research
Could tie into your ChoreBot work later
🤔 What I Notice:
- You've been crushing the feed digest work! Tons of releases this week (DISCO-3791, 3790, 3787, etc.)
Your package update tasks (DISCO-3705, 3785) keep getting pushed - might be worth tackling one of these for a maintenance win
The cron monitoring script (DISCO-3779) is "In Progress" - could be a good Friday finish
🚀 My Recommendation:
Start ChoreBot POC development - it's not urgent deadline-wise, but it's your most strategic and fun project. You could:
Set up the basic monitoring integrations (Sentry/Datadog webhooks)
Create the Linear ticket auto-creation logic
Maybe even start on some MCP protocol research
This hits your "fun but impactful" criteria perfectly and aligns with your August commitments!
What sounds appealing to you? Want to dive into ChoreBot, or would you prefer one of the more immediate Linear tasks?
Conclusion
We'll see how long I use this and if it is the silver bullet I need to organize my sprawling task lists, but so far, I like it! It seems to bridge the gap between a bunch of todo lists and linear tasks and what my former self thought each priority entailed.
What do you think? Have you used Chat like for something like this before?
