Sections of the Brief
Understand the five sections of your Daily Brief, from overdue promises to already handled, ordered so the items most likely to bite you come first.
Your Brief is structured by cognitive-load relief — the section most likely to bite you if ignored is first. You can read top-to-bottom and stop when you run out of time.
Things you said you’d do but haven’t replied with.
VIPs you’ve gone quiet on.
Threads where the ball is in someone else’s court.
Drafts ready for your approval.
What alfred_ took care of (audit log).
1. Overdue promises
Things you said you’d do but haven’t replied with. Source: emails where you committed to something (“I’ll get back to you on Tuesday”, “let me think on it”) and the deadline has passed without a follow-up from your side.
Why it’s first: these are integrity hits. Nobody likes the person who says they’ll do something and disappears.
Action: approve a draft, send a status update, or mark as no-longer-relevant.
2. Relationship risk
VIPs you’ve gone quiet on. Different from “overdue promises” — here you may not have explicitly committed to anything, but you’ve gone unusually quiet with someone whose response speed matters.
Why it’s second: silent damage. Relationships erode without obvious blame.
Action: send a quick check-in, schedule time to reconnect, or mark “already handled” if you’ve spoken offline.
3. Waiting on them
Threads where you replied and the other side hasn’t come back. alfred_ surfaces these once they pass the typical response threshold for that contact.
Why it’s third: not your fault, but worth knowing — sometimes you need to nudge.
Action: draft a follow-up, snooze, or mark as no-longer-relevant.
4. You owe replies
Drafts ready for your approval — emails alfred_ identified as needing a response and has already written for you.
Why it’s fourth: the work is mostly done. You just need to review, edit, send.
Action: approve, edit, or dismiss each draft.
5. Already handled
What alfred_ took care of without bothering you — archived noise, auto-replies it sent on your behalf (rare, opt-in), tasks it created automatically.
Why it’s last: this is the audit log. You read it for confidence, not action.
Action: none typically — but if alfred_ archived something it shouldn’t have, mark it “should not have archived” so the model learns.
How alfred_ decides what’s in each section
See How triage works for the underlying scoring model. Sections are derived from triage output + follow-up state + VIP status.
Customizing the Brief
You can hide sections you don’t use, change ordering, and pick how many items each section shows. Settings → Briefing preferences.