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Phase 4 · Trips & Big Weeks

Debrief & Archive

3 screens · run when the event is over

The event is over. Capture what was useful before it fades.

You hosted Thanksgiving. You finished the Yellowstone trip. You survived the in-laws' visit. The temporary Project served its purpose. Two moves left before you close it out: capture the lessons learned (so the next event like this is easier), and archive the Project cleanly (so it stops cluttering your active Projects list).

What this lesson is — and isn't.

It's a quick, doer-shaped reflection: what worked, what didn't, what to keep for next time. It isn't a journal exercise. Five to ten minutes once the event is behind you, then you close the file and move on.

Run the debrief.

Open the temporary Project. Tell Cowork:

Sample — debrief
The event is over. Walk me through a short debrief. Ask me, one at a time: 1. What worked well? Specific things — a meal that landed, a stop on the itinerary the kids loved, a piece of the timeline that played out smoothly. 2. What didn't work? Specific moments where the plan broke or where I'd want to do things differently. 3. What surprised me — in either direction? 4. What's worth keeping for the next event like this one? Specific recipes, packing items, restaurant picks, suppliers, timing tricks. 5. What's worth never doing again? Keep it short. Save the result as Lessons-Learned.md in this Project's folder. That file becomes the reference for the next time I plan a similar event.

Cowork interviews you, captures the answers, saves the file. The value is the next time — when you start a new temporary Project for "Thanksgiving 2027 at our house" and pull up the Lessons-Learned from this year so you don't repeat the same near-disasters.

Archive the Project.

Now close it out so it stops sitting at the top of your active Projects list.

What archiving actually does.

Per Anthropic's docs: when you archive a Cowork Project, its metadata is removed from the UI, but the Project's files on your computer aren't deleted. The folder at ~/Documents/Claude/Projects/[Project Name]/ stays put. You can come back to those files any time — including pulling the Lessons-Learned forward when you build the next similar Project.

Two paths for archiving:

  1. Through the UI

    In Claude Desktop, find the Project in your Projects list, click the menu (three dots or similar), choose Archive. Done.

  2. Or tell Cowork

    Inside the Project, send: "Archive this Project now. Confirm what's preserved on disk and what's removed from the UI." Cowork archives and tells you what happened.

Optional: add it to your "Past Events" reference in Family Manager.

If you want a running record of events you've hosted or trips you've taken, tell Family Manager (not the temp Project):

Log it in Family Manager
Add an entry to a Past-Events.md file in this Project (create the file if it doesn't exist). The entry: [event name and date], a one-line description, and a link to the archived Project folder at ~/Documents/Claude/Projects/[Project Name]/Lessons-Learned.md. Sort entries newest first.

Now when you're planning the next big event, you can ask Family Manager: "Show me my past hosting events — what have I done before and where are the lessons learned files?" Cowork pulls the list, you start with what you learned last time.

Trips & Big Weeks — done.

Four lessons:

  • Build a Temporary Project — the pattern for any time-bounded event
  • Trip Planning — itinerary, packing, restaurants, morning-of script
  • Holidays & Hosting — menus, prep timelines, day-of choreography
  • Debrief & Archive — capture lessons, close cleanly

Back to the Phase 4 menu.

Six Phase 4 modules done. One left: The Just-In-Case Binder — the household "if something happened to me tomorrow" template. Or stop here.

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