Planning and Task Management skills
Planning and Task Management Skills-md for AI Agents
Planning and task management skills are SKILL.md files that turn Claude, Codex and other AI agents into a calm, organised planning partner. They keep one trusted task list, run your weekly review, set goals and OKRs you can measure, build habits and routines that last, and plan each quarter in 13 weeks. Every skill works from plain files you own, so the agent remembers your tasks, terms and goals between sessions.
10 of 13 skills published, all with full pages, version 1.0.0, October 2026.
Productivity System Audit
Audit how a person or small team plans and gets work done: capture, clarify, prioritise, plan, focus, review, goals, energy, tools and team requests scored 0 to 3, the biggest leaks, a minimal one-source-of-truth system, daily and weekly rhythms, a gradual rollout and handoffs to specialist skills.
Task System Setup (Agent-Maintained Task List)
Set up a plain-text task system a person and their AI agent share: a TASKS.md file with Today, This week, Waiting for, Later, Projects and Done, a MEMORY.md glossary that decodes shorthand, people and codenames, next-action rewrites, update rules and morning, after-meeting and weekly sync routines.
Task Capture and Clarify
Collect commitments from email, chat, meetings, documents, calls and ideas into one inbox, then process each item with the Getting Things Done decisions: delete, do now under two minutes, delegate, defer to the calendar, create a project or file as reference, extracting actions, owners and dates from notes and threads.
Prioritisation
Choose what matters now: goals first, then the right method (top three, Eisenhower matrix, impact and effort, MoSCoW, weighted scoring, 1-3-5), hard constraints, a capacity check against real free hours, a not-now list with draft messages and short lists for today and this week.
Project Breakdown
Turn any outcome into a plan someone can start today: a definition of done, scope, milestones, tasks small enough for one sitting, dependencies and owners, estimates with 20 to 30% buffer against the planning fallacy, a pre-mortem, a schedule and the first next action.
Weekly Review
Run a 30 to 45-minute weekly review with an AI agent: an agent-prepared brief, empty inboxes, last week's results, stale task decisions, chased waiting items, a next action for every project, the next two weeks of calendar, a goals check, three to five priorities, focus blocks and a weekly lesson log.
Goal Setting and OKRs
Set personal, career or small-team goals that get reached: one to three objectives, measurable key results with baselines and targets, committed, stretch, learning and habit goal types, initiatives and habits per key result, if-then plans, a capacity check, weekly confidence check-ins and fair 0 to 1 scoring.
Focus and Deep Work
Protect and use focused time: choosing work that deserves deep focus, focus patterns from daily blocks to focus days and sprints, booking and defending calendar blocks, team norms and urgent routes, interruption reduction, a start ritual, handling attention residue, message batching and weekly focus-hour reviews.
Habits and Routines
Design habits and routines that last: one or two habits linked to goals, tiny versions for hard days, cues from existing routines, environment design, if-then obstacle plans, light tracking and weekly reviews, plus morning, shutdown, weekly reset and focus routines and a method for breaking unwanted habits.
Quarterly Planning and Review
Run a quarterly review and plan for a person or small team: goal scores with evidence, wins, misses and root causes, an agent-prepared time and energy audit, keep, stop, shrink and start decisions, next quarter's objectives, a 13-week plan with milestones, a capacity check, calendar protection and risks.
No skill matches that search. Clear it or choose All.
What planning skills do for an AI agent
Ask a general AI model to plan your week and you usually get a tidy list that ignores your meetings, your energy and what you actually committed to. It forgets everything by the next chat, so each session starts from scratch, and the plan quietly fails by Wednesday.
These skills work from files you keep: a task list, a glossary of your shorthand, a goals file and dated review notes. The agent reads them at the start, proposes priorities that fit the hours you really have, drafts follow-ups and updates the files at the end. Weekly and quarterly reviews keep the whole system trusted, goals turn into weekly actions, and habits start small enough to survive busy weeks.
Plans, reviews, goals and habits
The set covers setting up a task system, capturing and prioritising work, planning days and weeks, reviewing progress, setting goals, protecting focus and building routines. You decide what matters; the agent does the admin.
Where to start: a weekly rhythm and clear goals
Start with weekly-review. A 30 to 45-minute review each week keeps lists current, chases what others owe you and sets next week's priorities. Then use goal-setting-okrs to set one to three objectives for the quarter, so each weekly review has something to steer by.
Add habits-routines when you want a morning start, a daily shutdown or a habit that serves a goal, and run quarterly-planning-review every 13 weeks to score progress and plan the next quarter.
If your tasks live in many places, begin with the productivity system audit and task system setup instead: one trusted list and a glossary your agent reads first make every other skill work better.
The 13 skills in this set, and the research behind them
Thirteen skills are planned for this set. Ten are live with full pages; daily planning, time blocking and procrastination follow.
| Skill | What it does | Status |
|---|---|---|
productivity-system-audit | Find the biggest leaks in how you plan and finish work | Live |
task-system-setup | A TASKS.md and MEMORY.md your AI agent maintains | Live |
task-capture-clarify | Capture from every source and decide on every item | Live |
prioritisation | Choose what matters, check capacity and say no | Live |
project-breakdown | Turn outcomes into milestones and next actions | Live |
daily-planning | A realistic daily plan with top three tasks | Planned |
time-blocking | Calendar time for priorities, not just meetings | Planned |
weekly-review | A 30 to 45-minute review that keeps the system trusted | Live |
goal-setting-okrs | Objectives, key results and if-then plans | Live |
focus-deep-work | Protected focus time and fewer interruptions | Live |
procrastination-unblocking | Getting started on avoided tasks | Planned |
habits-routines | Small habits, morning and shutdown routines | Live |
quarterly-planning-review | Score the quarter and plan the next 13 weeks | Live |
The research behind these skills
| Finding | How the skills use it |
|---|---|
| If-then plans improve goal attainment (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006) | Every goal and habit gets a trigger and an obstacle plan |
| New habits took a median of 66 days to become automatic (Lally and colleagues, 2010) | Habits start tiny, one at a time, and missing a day is not failure |
| Writing a plan for unfinished tasks reduces intrusive thoughts (Masicampo and Baumeister, 2011) | Daily shutdowns and weekly reviews write down the next step |
| People underestimate how long tasks take (the planning fallacy) | Capacity checks add buffer before work is committed |
| Objectives with measurable key results keep focus (Measure What Matters) | Few objectives, baselines and targets, weekly confidence checks |
Example prompts
Each skill triggers on everyday wording. These prompts are good starting points:
- Weekly review: “Run my weekly review and plan next week.”
- Restart: “I have not reviewed anything for a month. Help me reset.”
- Goals: “Turn my goals for this quarter into OKRs.”
- Score: “Score last quarter's key results and tell me what to change.”
- Habits: “Help me build a writing habit I can keep.”
- Routines: “Design a morning start and a daily shutdown.”
- Quarter: “Plan my next 13 weeks.”
What the agent needs from you
Good planning depends on honest inputs. The most useful are:
- Your task list: even a messy one, from any app or notebook.
- Your calendar: last week and the next two weeks, so plans fit real time.
- Your goals: what would make this quarter a success.
- Your constraints: working hours, energy patterns, family and travel.
- Your shorthand: names, project codenames and abbreviations the agent should learn.
If something is missing, the skills ask only what changes the plan and start with sensible defaults.
What an agent cannot do, and myths to ignore
An agent can organise, remind, draft and summarise, but it cannot decide what matters most in your life or make time appear. It also does not replace professional support for burnout, anxiety, attention difficulties or health conditions; the skills say so and point to qualified help.
| Myth | What the evidence says |
|---|---|
| A new app will fix it | Habits such as capture and review matter more than tools |
| Habits take 21 days | A well-known study found a median of 66 days, with wide variation |
| Missing a day breaks a habit | The same study found single missed days did not derail progress |
| More goals mean more progress | Focus on one to three objectives produces clearer results |
| Plan every minute | Plans need buffer because people underestimate tasks |
Frequently asked questions
What is a weekly review?
A short weekly session to empty inboxes, clean the task list, chase waiting items, check goals and set next week's priorities.
How many goals should I set?
One to three objectives per quarter for a person, each with three to five measurable key results.
How long does it take to form a habit?
In one well-known study, a median of 66 days, ranging from 18 to 254, so start small and be patient.
Can an AI agent manage my to-do list?
Yes. With a shared TASKS.md file and a glossary of your terms, the agent can add, update and summarise tasks while you keep control of priorities.
What is a quarterly review?
A half-day or two-hour session to score the last quarter, decide what to stop and start, and plan the next 13 weeks.
Which agents can use these skills?
Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and other tools that support the Agent Skills format.
Are these skills free?
Yes, under CC BY 4.0, as long as you credit Afeez Adebayo and link to the source page.
Will more planning skills be added?
Yes. Pages for four written skills come next, then project breakdown, daily planning, time blocking, focus and procrastination.
Sources and more skills
- David Allen, Getting Things Done
- John Doerr, Measure What Matters
- Lally and colleagues (2010), How are habits formed, European Journal of Social Psychology
- Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006), Implementation intentions and goal achievement, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
- Anthropic knowledge-work plugins
Checked on 13 October 2026. See all Productivity skills and the Jobs and Careers skills.
