Give it a brain: how to make Claude answer like you by reading your own notes first

My AI reads my notes before it answers me.

That's the whole idea of today's post. Out of the box, Claude knows a lot about real estate in general. It doesn't know anything about how you do it. It doesn't know how you price, what you say when a vendor pushes back, or what you've learnt the hard way over the years.

So when you ask it something, you get a sensible, general answer. The kind of answer any agent could give. Useful, but not yours.

Give it your notes first, and that changes. It answers the way you would.

Why generic answers aren't enough

Most of what makes a good agent good isn't in a textbook. It's judgement. How you read a vendor. How you explain the evidence. Which words you use and which ones you avoid. What you've seen go wrong before.

That knowledge usually lives in your head, or scattered across old emails, notebooks and the notes app on your phone. Claude can't see any of it. So when you ask it for help with a tricky conversation, it fills the gaps with general advice.

General advice is fine for a first draft. But if you then have to rewrite it to sound like you and match how you actually work, you haven't saved much.

What "giving it a brain" means

It's simpler than it sounds. Nothing to install, no technical setup.

You keep your notes in one place. Plain documents, in plain English. Then you point Claude at that folder and tell it to read your notes before it answers.

Now when you ask a question, it isn't guessing what a typical agent would do. It's working from what you've written down about how you do it.

This builds on Day 1. There, you gave Claude a folder of files to do a job with. Here, the folder isn't the job. It's the background knowledge Claude uses for every job.

What to put in your notes

You don't need a polished manual. Rough notes in your own words work well, because that's the voice you want back. A few ideas for where to start:

• How you price. How you read the evidence, how you explain a price range, what you do when the comparable sales don't line up neatly.
• How you talk to vendors. Phrases you use, the order you explain things in, how you handle difficult conversations.
• What you've learnt. Lessons from past campaigns, written as general rules, not client stories.
• How you like things written. Your tone, words you never use, how formal or casual you are.
• Your process. The steps you follow from appraisal to settlement.

One note per topic keeps it easy to find and update. A short, clear page beats a long, rambling one.

A word on privacy. Write these as your methods and lessons, not as records about particular clients. No names, addresses or personal details. The rules about client information depend on where you work, so if it isn't needed, leave it out.

The Day 18 prompt

This is the prompt from today's episode. It uses a conversation most agents know well.

Read my notes in this folder before you answer. Using only what's in my notes, how would I handle a vendor who wants to list $100,000 above the evidence?

Here's what each part does.

"Read my notes in this folder before you answer." This tells Claude where your knowledge is and that it comes first. Without it, Claude may answer straight from its general knowledge and never open your files.

"Using only what's in my notes" is the important bit. It stops Claude from blending your approach with generic advice from the internet. If your notes don't cover something, you want to see the gap, not have it quietly filled with someone else's method.

"How would I handle..." asks for your approach, not the best approach in general. It frames the answer around how you work.

"A vendor who wants to list $100,000 above the evidence" is a real, specific situation. Specific questions get specific answers. A vague question like "how do I talk to vendors?" gets a vague reply, even with your notes.

That "only what's in my notes" line is also a quick test. If the answer comes back thin, that tells you something useful: your notes on that topic need more detail.

Try it yourself

1. Make a new folder called something like "My notes". Keep it just for this.
2. Write two or three short notes. Start with how you price and how you handle a vendor whose expectations are above the evidence. Plain documents are fine. Your own words, no client details.
3. Open the Claude desktop app and add that folder. Under the message box, choose to work in a project or folder and pick the one you just made. Only that folder.
4. Paste the Day 18 prompt and send it.
5. Read the answer against your notes. Does it sound like you? Did it stick to what you wrote? Did it make anything up?
6. Fill the gaps. If it said your notes didn't cover something, add a line or two to the right note, then ask again.

Then try the comparison. Start a new conversation with no folder added and ask the same question. Put the two answers side by side. One is a general answer. The other is yours.

Keep it a reference, not a free-for-all

This folder is something Claude reads, not something it should be changing. A few habits help.

• One narrow folder. Just your notes. Not your whole computer, not your client files. If it isn't in the folder, Claude isn't reading it.
• You own the edits. If you want Claude to help tidy or add to a note, ask it to show you the change first. End with "show me your plan first" and say yes only when it's right.
• Keep approvals on. Anything that sends, spends or deletes should still need your yes. Reading your notes doesn't change that.
• Check what's connected. Any folder you've added shows up in Claude's settings, so look now and then to make sure the list is only what you meant to share.

It gets better as your notes do

The nice thing about this is that it improves without any extra setup. Every time you learn something, add a line to your notes. Every time Claude gives an answer that doesn't sound like you, work out what was missing and write it down.

Over time, your notes become a written version of how you run your business. That's useful well beyond Claude. It's something you can hand to a new team member, or reread yourself before a hard conversation.

And when you pair this with what you've already learnt in the series, giving Claude jobs, having it check its own work, it isn't just doing tasks anymore. It's doing them your way.

Start with two or three notes and today's prompt. See how close it gets. Then keep adding.

Missed yesterday? Day 17: Make it check its own work

Every prompt from the series is on my free prompts page, with a new one each day as the episodes go up, ready to copy.