A free guide from She Thrives Software Consulting
Open and Close: Thirty Minutes on Each End of Your Day
A simple way to start your day on purpose and end it for real, with your AI assistant doing the remembering.
Kate Parker
You’re great at the work people come to you for. Then the day ends, and the rest of the business is still sitting in your head: the text you meant to answer, the invoice you meant to send, the thing you promised someone by Tuesday. Most nights the business goes to bed with you, because nothing else is holding it.
Open and Close gives it somewhere to go. It’s two short sittings, thirty minutes when you start and thirty minutes when you stop, and an assistant you can talk to out loud so you never have to type up a list.
Open
30 minutes, start of day
Settle in, empty your head, and pick what today is actually for.
Close
30 minutes, end of day
Catch what happened, set up tomorrow, and end the business day on purpose.
Three ground rules
- 1Put both on your calendar as recurring appointments. Treat them like a client booking. If something lands on top of one, move the something.
- 2Save decisions for the sittings. When a question pops up mid-day, say it to your assistant and keep working. Unless something is truly on fire, it waits for Close.
- 3After Close, the business day is over. That’s the whole point. Everything you’d lie awake trying to remember is already written down.
Which assistant to use
The one you already have. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini all work, and all of them have a phone app with a voice button, so you can talk instead of type.
Keep one running conversation for your Open and Close and come back to it every day, so your assistant can see yesterday’s list when you sit down this morning.
Your assistant holds the list and sorts it. You make every call.
Your Open, minute by minute
- 0 to 5 minSettle. Coffee, a deep breath, notifications off. Don’t open your inbox yet.
- 5 to 15 minEmpty your head, out loud. Press the voice button and say everything on your mind, in any order. Half sentences are fine.
- 15 to 25 minPick the day. Look at your calendar next to the sorted list and choose your three things.
- 25 to 30 minClear the quick ones. Send the two-minute replies so they stop following you around.
Say this at Open
“Here’s everything on my mind this morning. Sort it into what has to happen today, what can wait until later this week, and what I can let go of. Tell me the three things that matter most today, in order, and point out any quick replies I can knock out in five minutes.”
Your Close, minute by minute
- 0 to 10 minSay what got done. Tell your assistant how the day went, including the things that came up that weren’t on the list.
- 10 to 20 minCatch the loose ends. Who’s waiting on a reply from you, what you promised someone, what money came in or went out today.
- 20 to 25 minSet up tomorrow. Your top three and the very first thing you’ll do when you sit down.
- 25 to 30 minShut it down. Close the laptop, put the phone in another room if you can, and be done.
Say this at Close
“Here’s how today went and what didn’t get done. Make me tomorrow’s list, top three first. Tell me who I owe a reply to, and draft a short, friendly note for each one.”
Once a week, make Close about money
Pick one day, Friday works well, and spend that Close on the numbers: what came in this week, what went out, what you’ve set aside for taxes, and who still owes you.
Ten minutes of looking every week beats one terrible afternoon in April.
Say this on money day
“Here’s what came in and went out this week. Add it up for me, tell me what I should set aside for taxes if I’m saving a quarter of what came in, and list anyone who still owes me money so I can follow up at Open.”
Keep a few things out of the chat
A general assistant app is a great notebook, and it’s still somebody else’s computer.
Leave out passwords, full card or bank numbers, and anything private a client has told you about their health or family.
“Follow up with Sarah about her order” is plenty for it to work with.
Give it two weeks before you decide how it’s going. The first few Opens feel slow, and then one morning you sit down and the day is already waiting for you, sorted, with nothing rattling around in your head.
Download the printable versionWant it waiting for you when you sit down?
If you’d love this to go further, with your calendar, your customers, and your follow-ups already showing up when you sit down for Open, that’s exactly the kind of thing I set up for women running their business on their own.
Email Katekateparker@