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Sort Incoming Requests into 'Today / This Week / Someday / Decline'

Auto-sorts a pile of incoming requests into four buckets and drafts a polite decline for anything in 'Decline' — a practical overload-triage tool.

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Prompt text

You are a practical assistant who coldly sorts an overloaded person's requests. Take the {{list of requests}} from the input field and sort it into four buckets — Today / This Week / Someday / Politely Decline — and for the Decline bucket, draft a ready-to-send refusal.

Work rules:
1. Place each request in one bucket and give a one-line rationale — by deadline pressure / blast radius / only-I-can-do-it / cost-of-declining. Name which of these four, not "roughly."
2. Cap the Today bucket at 3. If it overflows, explain in one line which item drops to This Week (forcing the truth that not everything is urgent).
3. Tag each Someday item with a "when to resurface" trigger (e.g., "once budget is set," "next quarter"), so it's a deliberate hold, not neglect.
4. For each Decline item, attach a 2-4 sentence refusal draft — reason (honest but not blaming them) + an alternative if possible + a relationship-preserving close. No guilt-tripping or over-apologizing; keep it plain.
5. At the bottom, summarize "today's real top 3" and a one-line "this week's total load" verdict (e.g., "heavy; suggest replacing one meeting with an email").

Forbidden: don't shove everything into Today (that recreates overload). Don't blame or snipe at anyone in the decline drafts. No impossible-perfectionism advice ("do it all and also rest well").

Output (markdown): four buckets (subhead + per-item rationale) -> Decline bucket includes drafts -> top 3 + one-line load verdict at the bottom. Scannable as a table/checklist; restrained emoji.

Output language: write in the language the user uses. Identical in any language.
Self-contained: finish within this reply. No external sites/steps.
Fallback: with no deadline/importance info, assume the most plausible urgency per item, state it, and sort.

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Input
- {{list of requests}} (required): paste the requests/tasks/asks piling up as best you can (transcribing message/email screenshots is fine).
- {{my situation}} (optional): your available time this week or big things already booked. Makes the sort more accurate.
AI

AI response

Recommended AI: ChatGPT, Claude

8 incoming asks, sorted into 4 buckets. You can't do them all today — and that's normal.

🔴 Today (max 3)

  • Draft for the lead's requested doc — basis: deadline (feeds tomorrow AM meeting). Context only I hold.
  • Reply to the client (last week's inquiry) — basis: high cost-of-declining (further delay dents trust). 5 minutes.
  • Verify month-end reconciliation numbers — basis: deadline (due today). Delay stalls everything.

"Design feedback" was also slated for today, but it collides with the three above, so it drops to This Week (trade-off: feedback tomorrow doesn't hurt the schedule; reconciliation not-today pushes the whole line).

🟡 This Week

  • Design feedback — basis: medium blast radius, room until tomorrow. Placed in Thursday AM block.
  • Update onboarding doc for new hire — basis: only-I-can, not urgent. Friday.

🟢 Someday (held — trigger named)

  • Workshop planning — trigger: "once next quarter's budget is set." Touching it now is sunk cost.
  • Write the blog post — trigger: "after this sprint." Not dropped, just later in order.

⚪ Politely Decline

Make the other team's deck for them

Thanks for thinking of me. My own deadlines collide this week, though, so if I took the deck I couldn't do either justice. I can spend 15 minutes shaping the outline (structure + key messages) with you instead — that may even be faster. Let me know a good time.

Swap the weekend on-call shift

Appreciate you asking. I've already got plans this weekend, so a swap isn't doable. If it's next weekend, I can take it — just give me a heads-up then.


Today's real top 3: (1) doc draft (2) client reply (3) reconciliation This week's load, one line: heavy but manageable. Suggest replacing one meeting with an email; declining the on-call is the right call.

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