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Phase 3 · Cowork Goes With You

Build Your Family Dashboard

5 screens · do this on your computer

One view that pulls it all together.

You've built a working Family Manager, a brain dump system, a meal plan, and scheduled tasks. They each work. They each live in their own corner of the Project. The dashboard is the page that pulls them together — your week's priorities, this week's meals, and (as you build Phase 4 modules) your email triage, your money status, your kids' stuff. One view, current, every time you open it.

What you're about to build

  • A Family Dashboard artifact inside Family Manager — an HTML page Cowork builds and maintains for you
  • Two blocks at Phase 3 close: this week's priorities (read from your brain dump file) and this week's meals (read from your meal plan file)
  • Pinned in your Cowork sidebar so it's one click away
  • Built so it can grow — each Phase 4 module you complete adds another block

Tell Cowork to build it.

Open Family Manager and start a new chat. Send a prompt like this:

Build the dashboard
Build me a Family Dashboard as an HTML artifact in this Project. Make it mobile-friendly (works without zooming on a phone or tablet), clean and readable, plain CSS, no external libraries. Two blocks for now, and design it so I can add more blocks later as I build out other Projects: 1. Priorities this week — read the to-do bucket from current-week-priorities.md in this Project. 2. Meals this week — read from current-week-meals.md in this Project. Add a simple header at the top with the date. Each block should clearly show where its data is coming from. If a file doesn't exist yet, show "(not set up yet)" in that block instead of breaking. Save the artifact in this Project. After you build it, tell me how to pin it in my Cowork sidebar so I can open it quickly.

Cowork builds the artifact, shows it to you in the chat, and tells you how to pin it. Open it. Click around. If something looks off — colors, spacing, what's in a block — tell Cowork to fix it. This is iterative.

Push back if Cowork wants to do less.

If Cowork says it can't build certain parts or wants to simplify in ways you don't want, push back — ask what it'd need to do the thing you actually want. The ask-Claude-first habit applies here. Often the first answer isn't the best answer; the second or third try is.

How it stays current.

The dashboard isn't a static page. Each block reads from one of the "current-something" files we've been building across the course. When the underlying file changes, the dashboard reflects the new state next time you open it.

The current-something pattern, recap

  • current-week-priorities.md — your brain dump output. Updates whenever you run a brain dump (or when your Sunday scheduled task runs). The Priorities block on the dashboard reads from this file.
  • current-week-meals.md — your weekly meal plan. Updates when you generate or revise a meal plan. The Meals block reads from this file.
  • (coming in Phase 4) — current-month-money-scan.md from Money & Bills, plus an active-temp-project file when you're in the middle of a trip or big week. Each Phase 4 module adds its own "current-something" file and the matching dashboard block.

You don't have to think about any of this. You update the underlying file (via brain dump, meal plan, etc.); the dashboard picks it up next time it opens. The pattern is consistent across the whole course.

Sharing your dashboard.

The dashboard lives on your computer in Cowork. That's where it auto-updates as the underlying files change. If you want family to see it too — your husband on his phone, parents visiting from out of town, a co-parent — there are three ways depending on how much friction you're willing to set up once.

Path 1 — On your screen.

Pull up the dashboard on your laptop and show whoever's around. No setup. Best for one-off "here's what's going on this week" moments.

Path 2 — Send the file to their iPhone or iPad.

Tell Cowork to save the dashboard as an HTML file in your Family Manager folder. AirDrop it (or text it) to the person's iPhone or iPad. Have them open it in Documents by Readdle — a free file-manager app from the App Store. Inside Documents by Readdle, the dashboard is fully interactive — it works the same as on your laptop.

Heads up that this is a snapshot, not a live view — if you brain-dump on Wednesday, the version you sent on Sunday won't update. Best for occasional "here's the dashboard right now" moments where you don't mind sending an updated copy.

Path 3 — Deploy to Netlify for a real URL.

If you want family to bookmark one URL on any device — phone, tablet, work laptop — and just check in whenever, this is the path. Five minutes of one-time setup, then "tell Cowork to redeploy my dashboard" is the whole workflow.

One-time setup:

  1. Sign up at netlify.com — free tier covers this, no credit card.
  2. Connect Netlify to Cowork — in Claude Desktop, Settings → Connectors → Netlify → Connect → authorize. Or just ask Cowork: "Help me connect the Netlify connector for Cowork."

Each deployment:

Deploy the dashboard
Deploy my Family Dashboard to my Netlify site so [husband/family] can see it. If this is the first deploy, create a site called family-dashboard (or whatever name you suggest) and tell me the URL when it's live.

Cowork deploys; you share the URL. Family bookmarks it.

The catch worth knowing: the Netlify version is a snapshot from the moment of deployment. It doesn't auto-update when your underlying files change. Cowork has to redeploy for the family's view to refresh. Either you tell it to ("redeploy the dashboard") or you set it up as a scheduled task that handles the redeploy on its own.

The auto-redeploy scheduled task (recommended for Path 3).

The whole point of Netlify-sharing is that family doesn't have to ask you for an update. So if you go Path 3, set up a scheduled task to redeploy on a schedule that makes sense for your week:

Schedule the redeploy
Set up a recurring scheduled task in this Project: every Sunday at 8pm, redeploy my Family Dashboard to my Netlify site. That way the family's view refreshes after my Sunday brain dump.

Same awake-and-running caveat as every other scheduled task: your computer has to be on at 8pm Sunday for the redeploy to fire. Amphetamine (Mac) or Caffeine / PowerToys Awake (Windows) keep your laptop awake while plugged in if you'll be away from it then.

Phase 3 — done.

That's the system. Family Manager knows your family and how you want to be talked to. The brain dump pattern sorts what's in your head. Scheduled tasks run things on their own. The dashboard is one view of all of it.

What you've built across Phase 3

  • Dispatch — message Cowork from anywhere, get work done while you're not at your computer
  • The Brain Dump pattern — sort what's in your head into categories, save to current-week-priorities.md
  • Scheduled Tasks — recurring things Cowork runs on its own
  • The Family Dashboard — one view that pulls it all together, pinned and ready
  • (Optional) Shared with family — via Documents by Readdle for one-off mobile, or Netlify for a persistent URL with auto-redeploy

Next: Phase 4 — Aim It at Mom Life.

Phase 4 isn't a linear march — it's a menu. Six self-contained modules you pick from based on what matters most to you: Email & Calendar, Meal Planning Deep Dive, Kid Life & Learning, Running the Household, Money & Bills, Trips & Big Weeks, plus the Just-In-Case Binder. Each one extends Family Manager or spins up its own Project, ends with an optional "add this to your dashboard" callout, and stands on its own. Start with whichever solves your real problem first.

Continue to Pick What Matters Most →