Build a second brain for your project work

I stopped re-explaining myself to every AI by giving it one folder it reads first — my context, on tap.

▶ 3 minJun 2026Difficulty 2Cost: Free

Story behind

I kept re-explaining myself to every AI — my business, my preferences, the project — every single chat. The model was brilliant for five minutes and forgot everything the moment I closed the tab.

So I gave it a memory I control: one folder where my context lives as plain files, read at the start of every session. I keep mine in Google Drive — synced to every device, nothing to host — split in two:

code

  Brain/        who I am + how I work   (stable, rarely changes)
    Core        my role, voice, defaults
    Rules/      how to behave
    Skills/     my repeatable playbooks
    Memory/     facts the AI shouldn't re-ask
  Projects/     the actual work          (moving, one folder each)
    Context/    tools + current focus
    Work/        dated sessions → a work log

The split is the whole trick. The agent reads the brain to know how to act, then the project folder to know what I'm working on.

Why this helps you

Never brief the AI twice — your identity, rules, and project context load automatically. You start every session already understood.

Any agent, same context — Claude, a code agent, a phone app: they all read the same folder. You're not locked into one tool.

Resume cold — open a project after a month and the work log tells the agent, and you, exactly where things stood.

It compounds — each correction you capture makes the next task faster. The system improves as a by-product of using it.

No new software — it's just folders and text files in storage you already pay for. Nothing to host, nothing to break.

How to

Hover a step to open it, or click to toggle.

Use whatever you already sync — Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud. One root folder for everything, on every device, that an agent can read.

Good to know

Keep secrets out of it — store API keys in a password manager and reference them. Never paste real credentials into the files.

Stable vs moving — if you're editing your Core file every day, that's probably project context in the wrong place. The brain should change slowly.

Keep it alive — every time you repeat yourself to the AI, write the answer down once. That habit is what makes the folder smarter each week.

Start tiny — a single Core file already beats nothing. Add Rules and Skills only as real patterns appear; don't build the whole cathedral on day one.