Wrap up before you close

Build-along · ~10 min at your own keyboard

Your saved context tells the assistant who you are. It does not tell it what happened last Tuesday. Every new chat starts blank on the work itself, so you spend the first ten minutes explaining where you left off. The fix takes two minutes at the end of a session. Ask for a wrap-up with three parts: what was decided, what changed, and what is still open and whose it is. Not a summary. A summary says what you talked about. A wrap-up says what is now true. Keep it where you will find it. Next time, paste it in first and start from the first open item.

Ladder · Level 2The long version: Context ↗

Your starter: Wrap-up prompt

Prompt

Make it yours: Before you use it, change the 'This session was about' line to your own work and name the people who can own an open item.

Before I close this chat, write a wrap-up I can paste into the next one.
This session was about: [one line, in my words].
People who can own an open item: me, [names], or "the assistant, next session".

Use exactly three headings:
DECISIONS: choices we made, one per line, each one something a person could act on. Leave out anything we only discussed.
CHANGES: what is different now than when we started: files, prices, drafts written or sent. Write "No changes" if there are none.
OPEN: what is still undone. One per line, each with an owner from the list above, and a date if it has one.

Do not summarize the conversation. Do not add advice. If you are not sure whether something was decided, put it under OPEN with the question.

The coach checks that what you paste back is your own work. The starter pasted back unchanged won't pass.

Do this

0/6

Checkpoints

▸You should now see a wrap-up with three headings: Decisions, Changes, Open.
▸You should now see an owner beside every open item.
▸You should now see the wrap-up saved in a dated note or a project file, and a new chat that starts from it.

The three ways this goes wrong

The wrap-up is a summary: 'We talked about pricing, the schedule and the new hire.' — Ask again: 'List only what we decided, as choices someone could act on. Leave out anything we only discussed.'
Open items have no owner: 'Follow up with the supplier.' — Add a name to each line. If nobody owns it, decide now whether it is yours or whether it is dropped.
You write wrap-ups but never paste them back. Every new chat still starts from zero. — Make the paste-back the first thing you do in a new chat about that work, before the first question.

Dated facts in this lesson: ChatGPT has Saved memories, Reference chat history and Custom instructions, with the toggles under Settings > Personalization. Projects hold their own files and instructions (researched Oct 4, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person: check the source before you rely on it); Claude has an editable Memory and an 'Instructions for Claude' (personal preferences) setting, on Free, Pro and Max. Projects hold files and instructions, and Free gets 5 projects (researched Oct 4, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person: check the source before you rely on it); Gemini has 'Personal context' (on by default, needs Keep Activity) and 'Saved info'. Gems are being replaced by Skills, with conflicting rollout dates in October and November 2026 (researched Oct 4, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person: check the source before you rely on it); Consumer Copilot has Memory and Personalization in its settings. Copilot Notebooks hold files and instructions and come with Microsoft 365 Personal, Family or Premium (researched Oct 4, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person: check the source before you rely on it); Grok has 'Personalize with Memories' under Data Controls, and Projects that hold files and instructions (researched Oct 4, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person: check the source before you rely on it); Perplexity has Memory, including on Free. Spaces hold files and instructions: Pro allows 50 files per Space, and Spaces are not on Free (researched Oct 4, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person: check the source before you rely on it).

Share what happened

Paste one real wrap-up from a session of your own, with the three headings. Then paste the first line you used to start the next chat from it.

Strip API keys, passwords, and tokens before you paste. Swap them for [KEY].

🔒 Don't paste confidential, personal-health, or payment info.