Set up communication windows for email, Teams, and Slack
Designs set times to check and answer messages, an urgent-request path, and a short note telling colleagues how to reach you.
The prompt
Help me stop living in my inbox by setting fixed communication windows.
Channels I use: [e.g. Outlook, Teams, Slack, WhatsApp, phone]
Typical volume: [rough messages per day in each]
Response times people expect from me: [e.g. "clients within 4 hours", "my manager same day"]
Truly urgent situations in my job: [e.g. "production outage", "client escalation"]
My work hours and time zones of key colleagues: [DETAILS]
Return:
1. Window schedule: how many check-ins per day, at what times, and how long each one lasts - matched to the response times people actually need.
2. What happens in a window: a triage routine (reply, delegate, schedule, archive) in the order I should run it.
3. Urgent path: how someone reaches me for a real emergency outside a window, and what qualifies.
4. Settings to change: notification, status, and focus-mode settings for each channel.
5. Message to my team: a short, friendly note (under 120 words) explaining when I respond and how to flag urgent items.
6. Exceptions: periods (launches, month-end, travel) when the windows should loosen, and how.
If my role genuinely needs near-real-time replies, say so and design shorter, more frequent windows instead of pretending I can go dark for hours.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Productivity & Planning prompts
What to fill in
- e.g. Outlook, Teams, Slack, WhatsApp, phone
- rough messages per day in each
- e.g. "clients within 4 hours", "my manager same day"
- e.g. "production outage", "client escalation"
- DETAILS
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the Few-Shot structure (Few-shot prompting). A few-shot prompt includes one or more worked examples of the input and the output you want, so the model can copy the pattern instead of guessing it.
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