Your own daily news briefing, every morning at 8
Keeping up means opening ten tabs and scrolling past things you don’t care about. This prompt sets up a recurring to-do: every morning your todo.is agent reads the news on your topics and sends you a short briefing with links, on WhatsApp, Telegram or email.
The prompt
- Every morning at [TIME] ([TIME ZONE]), send me a daily news briefing on [YOUR TOPICS]. Search the web for news from the last 24 hours, read the articles, and pick the [NUMBER OF STORIES] most important stories. For each: a bold headline, 2 sentences on what happened and why it matters to [WHO YOU ARE], and the source link. Skip anything I already got yesterday, and leave out [TOPICS TO SKIP]. End with one "worth watching this week" item. Keep it under 2 minutes of reading. Send it to me on [WHERE TO SEND IT].
What to change
- [TIME]: When you want it, e.g. 7:30 or 8:00.
- [TIME ZONE]: Your time zone or city, e.g. "Europe/Berlin" or "New York time".
- [YOUR TOPICS]: Be specific: "EU climate policy, battery startups, news about my competitors Voltaro and GridNest".
- [NUMBER OF STORIES]: 5 to 8 keeps it short.
- [WHO YOU ARE]: e.g. "a product manager in fintech" so the "why it matters" fits you.
- [TOPICS TO SKIP]: e.g. "celebrity news and sports", or write "nothing".
- [WHERE TO SEND IT]: WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord or email.
Example result
- Your briefing · Thursday, October 8
- 6 stories, about 2 minutes.
- 1. EU lawmakers agree on draft battery recycling targets
- Negotiators reached a provisional deal on higher recovery rates for lithium. For you: suppliers selling in the EU will likely need recycling plans in their contracts. (source: a European policy news site)
- 2. Voltaro raises a Series B for home batteries
- The round will fund a second factory and expansion into Spain. For you: expect more price pressure in the Iberian market next year. (source: a startup funding newsletter)
- 3. Sodium-ion cells reach a new cost milestone in a lab test
- A university team reports cells that are cheaper per kWh than their last design, but only at small scale. For you: interesting, not urgent. (source: a university press release)
- 4. Grid operators warn about winter peak demand
- Two national operators asked large users to plan for flexible demand in January. For you: a good hook for your storage sales emails. (source: a national energy news outlet)
- 5. GridNest launches a new installer app
- Your competitor’s app lets installers book jobs and order parts in one place. For you: worth a look before your Q1 roadmap review. (source: GridNest’s blog)
- 6. Germany opens a new round of storage subsidies
- Applications open next month for small businesses. For you: check eligibility for your customers. (source: a government press page)
- Worth watching this week
- The EU energy ministers’ meeting on Friday may change the timeline for item 1.
How to do it with todo.is
- Copy the prompt and fill in the [brackets] with your time, topics and where to send it.
- Paste it on the Today screen in todo.is, or send it to your agent on WhatsApp or Telegram.
- Your agent saves it as a recurring to-do and sends the first briefing at the time you chose.
- Reply to any briefing with "more on story 3" or "add AI policy to my topics" to change it.
Tips
- Name companies, people or places you care about. Specific topics give much better briefings than "tech news".
- Ask for a longer Monday edition: "on Mondays, also add a recap of the weekend".
- Have it emailed as a PDF on Fridays if you want an archive of the week.
- Your agent remembers what it already sent, so stories don’t repeat day after day.
FAQ
- Where does the news come from? Your agent searches the web and reads the articles, and each story in the briefing includes the source link so you can read the original.
- Can I get the briefing on WhatsApp? Yes. Recurring to-dos can be delivered to WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord or your email inbox.
- Can it read paywalled news sites? Only what is publicly available, unless you connect your own Chrome with the todo.is Connector, where your agent can use sites you’re already signed in to.
- How do I stop or pause it? Open the recurring to-do in todo.is and pause or delete it, or just tell your agent "stop my morning briefing".
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