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Bonus Resource · Keep your system sharp

Project Tune-Up — Keep Your Projects from Going Stale

Bonus Run it once a quarter

Why this exists.

Your Projects are like that one drawer in the kitchen. You loaded it a year ago with the good stuff, and somewhere along the way it picked up three dried-out Sharpies, a coupon that expired in 2023, a screw from a chair you already fixed, and a birthday card you meant to send in March.

Projects do the same thing. You built your Family Manager back in the Family Manager build when the oldest was in 3rd grade. She's in 4th now. The pantry inventory you uploaded three months ago doesn't match what's actually in there. The teacher email template still addresses last year's teacher.

This bonus is the tune-up.

What a tune-up actually fixes

Stale facts — Claude suggesting dairy recipes six weeks after you went dairy-free.
Outdated schedules — "soccer Tuesdays" when he quit soccer for robotics in January.
Custom-instruction drift — the "12 and 9" you wrote a year ago when they're now 13 and 10.
Dead weight — a Project you haven't opened in two months.

When to run one.

Three triggers.

1

The calendar trigger

Every three months. First Saturday of January, April, July, October. Put it on the calendar once and let the calendar do the remembering.

2

The life-event trigger

New school year. New job. New baby. Move. New diagnosis. Change in who lives in the house.

3

The something-feels-off trigger

Claude keeps suggesting the wrong thing. It uses last year's teacher's name. It thinks your kid still plays a sport she quit. Something stale is causing that — usually one specific file.

The Quarterly Audit prompt.

Open the Project you want to audit. Paste this inside it. Claude will walk you through it.

The Quarterly Audit — run this inside each Project, one at a time
Audit this Project for me. I want a quick 5-question audit — ask me one question at a time, wait for my answer, then move on. Do not dump all five at once. The five questions: 1. What have I actually used this Project for in the last month? (Concrete examples, not a category.) 2. What's in the custom instructions that might be out of date now? (Ages, grades, jobs, diets, schedules, tone preferences.) 3. Of the files I've uploaded to you, which ones feel stale to you based on what I just told you? 4. Is there anything I keep having to re-explain in every chat that really should live in the custom instructions? 5. Is there anything I've stopped using this Project for — a job that's moved elsewhere or just stopped mattering? After I've answered all five, write me a "Tune-Up Report" with three lists: STILL GOOD — what to leave alone. UPDATE — what to change, with a suggested new version I can copy-paste into custom instructions or a replacement file. CONSIDER REMOVING — what's no longer earning its spot. End with a one-line verdict: either "This Project is earning its slot" or "This Project might be ready to rotate."

Refreshing uploaded files — the cadence.

Not every file ages at the same rate. Some need a look every week. Some sit there fine for a year. Here's the rhythm:

Refresh cadence by file type

  • Pantry inventory — weekly if you actively meal-plan, otherwise skip the upload and just type it in.
  • Family Factsheet — once a year, plus whenever a kid shifts grades or quits/starts an activity.
  • Mom Profile — twice a year, or whenever a season-of-life shift happens.
  • Kid profile — at each birthday. Ages change, reading levels change, interests change.
  • School handbook & calendars — at the start of each school year.
  • Insurance dec page — at renewal, annually.
  • Lease / deed / HOA bylaws — only when they actually change.
  • Appliance manuals — only when you buy a new appliance or realize one's missing.
  • Sports / activity schedules — at the start of each season. Old ones confuse the plan.
Run inside any Project — a "what's actually in here" scan
List every file I have uploaded to this Project. For each file, tell me: — What it contains, in one sentence. — Your best guess at how out-of-date it might be, based on anything you know about me from our chats or anything in the file itself that looks time-stamped. Flag anything that looks like it might be older than a year, or anything that references information I've mentioned in other chats has since changed. Finish with a ranked recommendation: which files should I prioritize re-uploading first, and which ones can wait?

Permanent Projects vs. seasonal Projects.

Some Projects are permanent — they sit at the center of your system and you'd notice immediately if they were gone. Family Manager is the obvious one: it's your central nervous system, with meal planning and weekly priorities folded in.

Other Projects are seasonal. A vacation Project for the two weeks around a trip. A school-year inbox Project for the months when school emails are heavy. A budget-reset Project during a financial recalibration. These earn their keep for a season, then quietly retire.

The tune-up move: every few months, look at your Project list and ask which ones are still actively serving you. The seasonal ones whose season has passed can be archived — but copy the good stuff out first.

Before you archive — save the legacy.

Claude does not currently have an "export everything from this Project" button. If you delete a Project without copying out the good stuff first, it's gone. Run this inside the Project you're about to retire:

The Project Legacy prompt — run BEFORE you archive anything
I'm about to archive this Project. Before I do, write me a one-page "Project Legacy" document that captures everything worth keeping. Include: 1. The custom instructions I'm using — copy them verbatim so I have them saved. 2. A list of every file I've uploaded, with a one-sentence description of each. 3. The 5 most useful things this Project has helped me do — real specific examples from our chats, not generic categories. 4. The 3 prompts I've used most often inside this Project — actual prompt text I can save and reuse elsewhere. 5. Any ongoing threads or recurring topics I might want to continue somewhere else. Format the whole thing as a clean, copy-paste-ready document titled: "Project Legacy — [this Project's name] — [today's date]" I'm going to save this to my Drive. Make it readable in a year.

Where to save it

Copy the output into a Google Doc (or Apple Notes, or a file on your desktop) in a folder called Project Legacy. One folder, all your retired Projects, in case you ever want to rebuild one or reference the instructions.

Archive the Project — the exact clicks.

  1. Sign into claude.com (or open the desktop app).
  2. Click Projects in the left sidebar.
  3. Click the Project you're retiring to open it.
  4. Look for the three-dot menu or the settings gear near the Project's name at the top of the page.
  5. Choose Delete Project. (Claude doesn't currently offer a soft archive — deletion is the only option, which is why you saved the Legacy document above first.)
  6. Confirm. It's gone.
  7. Back in the Projects sidebar, click + New Project to start building its replacement.

Natural fold-in patterns — where jobs migrate when a Project retires

Inbox Command Center's job folds cleanly into Family Manager. Add the "Open Loops" file to Family Manager's files and paste Inbox Command Center's triage custom instructions into Family Manager's instructions as a second paragraph.
Kid Life's job can fold into Family Manager during lower-volume seasons — just paste the "never give parenting advice" guardrail into Family Manager's instructions while it's doing double duty.
Family Manager, Home Operations — these two are the permanent core. Don't archive these unless your life has genuinely changed.

Merging drifted Projects.

Sometimes two Projects started doing overlapping work without you noticing. You ask Family Manager about the school email AND ask Inbox Command Center about the school email. You've been managing a split you didn't need. Time to merge.

The Merge Diagnostic — run this in either Project, or a fresh chat
I have two Projects that might be overlapping in their jobs. Project A is called [NAME]. Its custom instructions say: [paste the full custom instructions from A]. Project B is called [NAME]. Its custom instructions say: [paste the full custom instructions from B]. I want you to tell me: 1. What's clearly different about their jobs — what each one uniquely does well. 2. What they're both doing right now that's duplicated work. 3. If I merge them into one Project, which of the two should absorb the other? Why? 4. Write me a single set of merged custom instructions that combines their jobs without losing anything important. Keep it under 400 words. 5. List the files I'd need to move from the absorbed Project into the surviving one. End with: "Merge recommended" or "Keep them separate" with one sentence of reasoning.

If Claude recommends merging, follow the Rotation Move steps above on the Project being absorbed. You'll free up one slot in the process.

What stays, what updates, what goes.

When you've finished auditing a Project, everything in it falls into one of three buckets. This chart is your decision tree:

Keep as-is

  • Family Factsheet's core facts (names, ages, diet baseline)
  • Family Manager's Core 10 lunchbox rotation
  • Home Operations' appliance list with serial numbers
  • Kid Life's "never give parenting advice" guardrail
  • The Mom Profile (if still current)
  • Tone and voice preferences that still feel right

Update in place

  • Kid ages, grades, and current "big thing"
  • This year's school handbook and calendar
  • Current sports/activity schedules
  • The current insurance dec page
  • Anything date-sensitive that's changed since upload

Let it go

  • Projects for one-time events (the Wedding Project, the House Sale Project)
  • Projects you've used fewer than 3 times this quarter
  • Custom instructions naming kids who've aged out of that situation
  • Files you've meant to update for three quarters and haven't