The first morning back is a strange one. The inbox has a number on it you would rather not look at. The calendar has moved. Someone mentioned a decision in a chat, and you are not sure which one.
Reading everything in order is the slow way, and it is the wrong order anyway. Message 214 might matter more than message 3. What you need is a short list, ranked by what needs you first.
What a catch-up brief looks like
Say you were out for nine days. A good catch-up has four parts:
- Needs you first. The few things where someone is waiting on you.
- Can wait. Everything real but not urgent, grouped so you can skim it.
- Decided without you. Any decision made while you were away, with who made it and why.
- Coming up. This week's meetings and deadlines.
And behind that, drafts. For the urgent items, a reply is already written in your voice, ready to edit.
That is the catch me up use case. It is a one-off you ask for when you are back, not a daily routine.
Step 1: say how long you were away
Open your Chief of Staff and type it in plain words. Here is a brief you can paste and change:
I was out for nine days. Go through my email, my chats and my calendar for that time and tell me what happened, with what needs me first. Draft replies for the urgent ones and send nothing.
If you set up chat with your Chief of Staff on Telegram, Slack or Discord, you can send the same request from there, even from the airport.
Step 2: let it read what you have connected
The team reads email, chats and your calendar for that stretch. For Gmail, Google Calendar or Slack, the connection runs through Flux Router credits or your own connected-apps key.
You do not have to connect anything to try it. Paste in the emails or notes you care about, and it works from those.
Step 3: read the top of the brief
Read the "needs you first" section and stop. Say it lists six items. Maybe two are quick yeses, one is a complaint, and one is a client waiting on a quote.
Now you have a plan for the morning, and you did not have to open 200 messages to get it. The rest of the brief is there when you want it.
Step 4: edit the drafts, then send them yourself
Each urgent item has a draft waiting. Read it, change what is off, and approve the ones that should go.
This is where the stop line matters. Your brief says send nothing, and new bots start in Ask mode, which asks first on Claude Code and Codex. Keep this job to drafts and send the replies you like. Accepting or declining a meeting also waits for you, and so does messaging anyone new. If you want the full picture, the stop line explains how it works, and can I let AI send emails covers the sending question directly.
A small trick for the first hour
Once you have the list, work through it in the order it gives you, and close each item before you open the next. Reply, hand it to a bot, or tell your Chief to park it until Thursday. The goal is to leave the first hour with the urgent pile empty, not with the whole inbox cleared. Everything in "can wait" can wait.
Follow up in plain words
The brief is a conversation, not a report. Once you have read it, answer it:
- "Draft a reply to Dana and keep it short."
- "Which of the meetings that moved clashes with my Thursday?"
- "Put the decision about the new supplier into one paragraph."
Your Chief hands the work to the right bot, and anything that needs your OK comes back as a request.
How this differs from a daily brief
A morning brief covers one night. A catch-up covers a long stretch and ranks it by urgency instead of by time. If you want both, they fit together nicely.
The morning brief is a routine: one page waiting in Murage each weekday. Our post on a morning brief worth reading shows how to set it up, and it makes a good habit for the first week back, when you are still getting your bearings.
For the inbox on its own, inbox triage has a Reply Desk team that sorts what arrives and drafts replies in your voice. Clear your inbox before you sit down walks through it.
The honest limits
- Murage works while your computer is on. The catch-up runs while Murage is open. If you want a routine for the first week back, it runs while Murage is open too, and a run up to 12 hours late still happens.
- It reads what you connect or paste. It cannot see an inbox or chat you have not given it.
- It drafts, you decide. A draft is a starting point. Read it before it goes.
Make the next time shorter
Before you leave next time, tell your Chief of Staff the dates you will be away and who can answer what. Then ask for the same brief the moment you are back. The more clearly you say what counts as urgent, the shorter the top of the list becomes.
Try it
The next time you come back from anywhere, skip the scroll. Download Murage, paste the brief above, and spend your first hour on the six things that matter.