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Phase 4 · Trips & Big Weeks

Build a Temporary Project

4 screens · build, use, archive

Why a temporary Project, not just adding to Family Manager.

A vacation has its own context: itinerary, hotel info, restaurant lists, the weather, kid-friendly stops, what's open, what's already booked, what's still loose. Same for hosting Thanksgiving — different timeline, different menu logic, different guest list, different things going wrong. None of that needs to live permanently in Family Manager. You'll be working on it heavily for one to four weeks, then it'll be irrelevant.

That's what a temporary Project is for. You build it the week before the event. You use it constantly while you're planning and during the event itself. When it's over, you archive it — preserving anything worth keeping for next time without leaving the noise in your day-to-day.

When a temporary Project fits

  • Trips — vacations, weekend trips, road trips that take real planning
  • Holiday hosting — Thanksgiving at your house, big family Christmas, anything where you're feeding multiple people across multiple days
  • Multi-day houseguests — extended family for a week, friends staying through a long weekend
  • Big event weeks — a wedding you're heavily involved in, a school production where you're stage-managing the back end, anything with concentrated logistics
  • Move week — the week of an actual move

Create the Project with a name that ages well.

The naming convention matters here more than for permanent Projects, because a year from now you'll have several archived temp Projects and you need to be able to tell them apart.

Naming pattern that works

Trip — Yellowstone June 2026 / Holiday — Thanksgiving 2026 at our house / Houseguests — Mom & Dad April 2026 / Move — May 2026

What — When (year if it matters). Specific enough that the folder name in archive a year later still tells you the story.

  1. Create the Project

    Cowork tab → Projects → + → Start from scratch. Name it using the convention above. Save location: ~/Documents/Claude/Projects/[Project Name]/. Skip the instructions and files. Click Create.

  2. Mark it temporary in the Custom Instructions

    This part's optional but useful — it helps Cowork's responses stay scoped to the event window.

Mark the Project as temporary
Add to this Project's Custom Instructions: "This is a temporary Project for [event description, dates]. After [end date], it'll be archived. Default responses to event-specific context only — don't try to integrate with my permanent Projects like Family Manager or Home Operations unless I explicitly ask. When the event is over, I'll come back and run a debrief and archive."

Build the Event Reference file.

One file with everything Cowork needs to know about this event. Cowork interviews you — same pattern as the Family Factsheet, Pantry Inventory, Home Reference. Tell it:

Event Reference interview
Build me an Event Reference file for this temporary Project. The event is: [describe in a sentence or two — what it is, when, where, who's involved]. Interview me one section at a time. Cover: dates and key timing; location (with the relevant detail — addresses if useful, but no need to be exhaustive); who's involved (just our family, family plus guests, kids only, etc.); what's already booked or confirmed (with last-4 or confirmation hints, not full numbers); what's still loose or undecided; the basic logistics (transportation, lodging, key timing pressures); anything that makes this event different from a normal week (a kid who hasn't traveled before, dietary needs of guests, weather or season that matters). Skip anything I don't have answers for yet — we'll fill in later. Save the result as Event-Reference.md in this Project's folder.

Cowork interviews you, builds the file, saves it. From here on, every conversation in this Project starts with that context loaded.

Add to it as you go.

You won't know everything when you start. As you book more, add it: "Add to my Event Reference — we just booked the Old Faithful Inn for nights 3 and 4." As you change plans: "Update the Event Reference — we're skipping Mammoth Hot Springs, the kids couldn't handle the extra drive." Cowork keeps the file current.

What's coming in the rest of the module.

The temporary Project is created. The Event Reference is loaded. The next three lessons use it.

The next three lessons

  • Trip Planning — itineraries, packing lists, kid-friendly stops, restaurant scouting, the morning-of script you can voice-read in the kitchen. The cool-win of this module.
  • Holidays & Hosting — menus, prep timelines, day-of choreography, the parts that always almost-go-wrong
  • Debrief & Archive — when it's over: what worked, what didn't, what to remember for next time, then archive the Project cleanly so it's not clutter

Next: Trip Planning.

The most use-heavy of the three. Everything you'd otherwise have in a doc, a saved Google Maps list, a Notes app, and your head — Cowork holds it.

Continue to Trip Planning →