# The walk: clear your to-do list by answering questions out loud A three-step routine. An AI agent reads your tasks, inbox and calendar and turns them into a short list of decisions, each with a recommended answer. You answer them out loud on a walk, using a voice chat on your phone. Then the agent carries out only what you answered. Most of a busy person's backlog isn't blocked on work. It's blocked on small decisions: yes or no, today or Friday, A or B. The agent does the reading; you just decide. *By Chris Kirkland, [mrkirkland.com](https://mrkirkland.com/writing/i-do-a-lot-of-my-work-on-a-walk-now/). Free to use and adapt.* --- ## What you need - **An agent that can read your tools.** Any AI assistant that can open your task list, email and calendar: for example Claude Code or Claude with connectors. Read access is enough for step 1; step 3 needs permission to edit tasks and create drafts. - **A voice chat on your phone.** Any chatbot app with voice mode. It needs no access to anything; that's the point. - **A walk.** 10 to 20 minutes. ## How it works | Step | Who | What happens | Can it change anything? | |---|---|---|---| | 1. Prep | Your agent | Reads your tasks, inbox and calendar, and writes the decision pack | No, it only reads | | 2. Decide | You + voice chat | You paste the pack in and answer each decision out loud on a walk; the chat writes a results block | No, it has no tools | | 3. Apply | Your agent | You paste the results back; it does exactly what you answered | Yes, within the limits below | Only step 3 changes anything, and only what you said out loud. ## Map your system once Every task manager has some way to say "how soon". The prompts below use four plain buckets. Tell your agent once how they map onto yours: | Bucket | Means | Might be called | |---|---|---| | **Now** | Doing it today | P1, Today, a due date of today, a "This week" section | | **Next** | Soon, with a date | P2, Upcoming, a due date in the next week or two | | **Later** | Not now, but keep it | P3, Someday, Backlog, no date | | **Park** | Shelved; stop seeing it | A Parked or On-hold list, an archive tag, dates removed | Plus two exits: **Done** (tick it off) and **Drop** (delete it, or close it as "won't do"). Dates do most of the work. An overdue task is a decision ("do it today, give it a new date, or park it"), and a task whose date has been moved three times usually needs parking or dropping, not a fourth date. --- ## Step 1: the prep prompt (paste into your agent) ``` Build me a decision pack for today. Read only; don't change, send, label or mark anything as read. MY SYSTEM - Tasks live in: [your task app]. My buckets: Now = [..], Next = [..], Later = [..], Park = [..]. - Inbox: [your email]. Calendar: [your calendar]. - Things only I do (you may only prepare them, never do them): sending messages, publishing, payments, contracts, anything about people's jobs or pay. READ 1. Tasks: overdue, due today, due in the next 7 days, and anything new or unsorted. Don't read me the whole backlog. For each overdue task, note how many times its date has moved if you can tell. 2. Calendar: today's events. These are fixed; note clashes and unanswered invites. 3. Inbox: unread threads that need MY decision or reply. Skip receipts, newsletters and notifications. Before recommending anything, open the task or thread and check the facts. Say plainly what you couldn't check. WRITE THE DECISIONS - One decision = one question I can answer out loud in a sentence. - Each has lettered options, one marked [recommended]. Yes/no is still (a)/(b). - Self-contained: I'll be walking and the chat can't look anything up, so include who, what, when and what's blocking. No links, no IDs. - Use my buckets and real dates in the options: "(a) Now [recommended]; (b) Next, Friday 24th; (c) Park". - Bundle routine items: "Tick these 5 as done", "Move these 8 to Later". I can answer "a, except X". - Task moved 3+ times: say so and recommend Park or Drop, not another date. - Where you can do the groundwork, offer it: "(a) you draft the reply, I check and send it". - Order: people waiting and deadlines first, then quick yes/no, housekeeping last. - Cap it at 15 decisions. Keep a private note, for yourself, of which tasks and threads each decision refers to and what each option would do, so you can apply my answers later without guessing. Don't put that note in the pack. OUTPUT Put the whole pack in one code block, so I can copy it on my phone, using the format below. ``` The pack your agent writes (this is what you paste into the voice chat): ``` DECISION PACK: [DATE] You're helping me make decisions by voice while I walk. Rules: - Take the decisions one at a time, in order. Read the short version and the recommendation, then wait for my answer. - Keep it moving. "Skip" means skip. If I ask something you can't answer from this text, say so and note it under QUESTIONS. - The recommendations come from my work assistant. Challenge them if they look wrong, but you can't look anything up or change anything. - After the last decision, suggest a plan for today: a short ordered list around my fixed events, using only what I said I'd do today. - Then give me the RESULTS block below. Keep my exact wording for names, dates and specifics. FIXED TODAY: [meetings and times] WAITING ON OTHERS: [no decision needed, just so I know] D1. [Short title] [Two to four lines of facts.] Options: (a) ... [recommended]; (b) ...; (c) ... D2. ... === RESULTS (paste this back to my work assistant) === PACK: [DATE] D1: [letter, or my answer in my words] | [specifics] D2: ... PLAN: [today's ordered list with times] QUESTIONS: [anything the assistant needs to look up] NEW: [anything I added that wasn't on the list] ``` ## Step 2: the walk Paste the pack into your phone's chat, switch on voice mode, and go. Mostly you'll just say "A". At the end, copy the RESULTS block it gives you. ## Step 3: the apply prompt (paste into your agent) ``` Here are my answers to today's decision pack. Apply them using your private note. - A letter means do what that option said. My specifics override it (if I picked "Friday" but said "Thursday", it's Thursday). - If an answer could mean two things, don't guess: hold it, do the rest, and ask me about all held items at the end in one message. - Decisions missing from my results stay open for tomorrow's pack. - Check before each change, skip anything already done, and re-check afterwards. - Hard limits, whatever I said: messages are drafts only, never sent; nothing is published, paid or signed; don't tick a task done unless it really is done or I said so. - Answer anything under QUESTIONS. Add anything under NEW as tasks in the right bucket. Then report: what you changed, what you held, the drafts waiting for me, and today's plan as a timed list. [paste the RESULTS block here] ``` --- ## Tips - **Run it by hand when you want it**, not on a schedule. A pack nobody asked for goes stale. - **Skipping is information.** If you keep skipping the same decision, it isn't a small decision. Give it real time, or drop it. - **Start with tasks only.** Add the inbox and calendar once the routine feels natural. - **Read before anything sends.** The agent drafts; you send.