VANDAMPersonal AI Setup
An assistant that knows your weekand writes the way you do.
One week to set up your personal AI properly. Connected to your mail, calendar, documents and CRM with the permissions you choose. Your priorities, people and writing voice written down. A handful of skills for the work that fills your week, and coaching until it becomes a habit.
$4,800 one week · per person
Where Elena’s week goes
Elena Marsh, CEO of Atlas & Co. · week 44
5 hours on email, prep and updates 8.5 hours back
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Monday, 7:40 · 66 new since Friday evening
6 need you
19 drafted for you
41 for later
To Jonas Weber, Northwind · Re: renewal terms
Jonas, thanks for the volumes. 4% works for us if we keep the two-year term. I’ll bring the revised sheet on Monday. E
Drafted in your voice. Waiting for you to send.
Monday, 13:30 · before Northwind renewal at 14:00
- Jonas Weber, head of purchasing. Third renewal.CRM
- Spend last year $1.2M, down 6%.CRM
- He asked for 4% off volumes above 40 pallets a month.Mail, Oct 14
- Two late deliveries in September, both credited.Service log
- Ask whether the two-year term is still on the table.Your notes
Friday, 15:30 · update to the board and investors
October closed at $3.4M, 2% over plan. Northwind renewed for two years at 4% off volumes above 40 pallets. Our offer for Head of Sales was accepted and she starts in January. One risk: carrier costs rose again, and we are testing a second carrier in the north.
The week goes to meetings and the mail around them.
- 72%
- of a CEO’s work time goes to meetings, 37 in an average week. Porter and Nohria, 27 CEOs,
Harvard Business Review, 2018. - 117
- emails reach the average worker every day, most of them skimmed in under a minute.
Microsoft, Work Trend Index, June 2025. - 2 hours
- less a week on email for workers who used an AI assistant built into their mail, meeting and writing apps. Field experiment with 7,137 workers in 66 firms,
NBER, 2025.
The most valuable skill sets on the planet right now: 1. people who can set up agents properly, manage them, and run local AI models
Late CheckoutJune 2026Source Most of the hour before a meeting goes to finding the last email.
Most of an executive’s week is meetings and the mail around them.
When Michael Porter and Nitin Nohria tracked how 27 CEOs spent their time, meetings took 72% of it and electronic communication another 24%, reported in Harvard Business Review. The meetings are the job. The hours around them, sorting the inbox, reading back through a thread before a call, turning a week of notes into an update for the board, are work an assistant can do well once it can see what you see.
That last condition is where most setups stop. An executive with a chat window and no access to mail, calendar or CRM gets general answers, and pasting context in by hand costs the time it was meant to save. Setting it up properly means a short list of decisions: what it may read, what it may draft, what it may never send, who your people are and how you write.
The setup takes a week because those decisions are yours, and we make them with you, in your own accounts. You leave able to change every one of them yourself.
I’m starting to believe more and more that the most effective employees will have custom agents and personal software they bring to their jobs.
GraphedNovember 2025Source What your Monday looks like after the setup.
The week opens with the inbox already sorted: what needs you on top, with a reason, replies drafted in your voice under it and the rest set aside for later. Every meeting with an outside party gets a brief before it starts, built from the CRM, past mail and your notes.
Your context lives in a file you can read: priorities, people, the way you write and what the assistant may never do on its own. On Friday the weekly update is drafted from the week’s numbers and notes. You read it, change what you want and send it.
What every setup includes.
Your tools and habits differ. The setup is built the same way each time.
Connected accounts
Mail, calendar, documents and CRM, in the assistant you use.
Permissions
What it may read, draft and send, set per connection.
Context file
Your priorities, people and current projects, in plain words.
Voice guide
How you write, checked against your own sent mail.
Inbox triage
Three piles each morning, with drafts for the replies.
Meeting briefs
Before each outside meeting, from the CRM and past mail.
Updates and memos
Board and investor updates and decision memos, drafted in your voice.
Coaching
Daily check-ins during the week, a follow-up after a month.
How the week runs.
Connect what you work in
Mail, calendar, documents and CRM are connected on day one, with your IT lead where needed. It reads by default and drafts when asked. Sending stays with you unless you decide otherwise for a specific kind of message.
Write your context down
A session of about ninety minutes on your priorities this quarter, the people who matter and how you work with each of them, and the way you write, checked against your sent mail. The result is a short file you can read and edit.
Build your skills, then use them
Inbox triage, meeting briefs from the CRM and past mail, board and investor updates and decision memos, adjusted to how you work. You use them on your real week with a short daily check-in, and a follow-up a month later.
Set up in a week.
Adjusted as your work changes.
Priorities shift every quarter, people change roles and new kinds of work turn up. After the setup we can check in each quarter to refresh your context, tune the skills you use and add the ones you now need.
Context refresh
Priorities, people and projects updated for the new quarter.
New skills
The next repeat task turned into a skill.
Access check
Connections and permissions reviewed against what you agreed.
Coaching call
An hour on what you use, what you skip and why.
What you
receive.
Connected assistant
Reads what you allow, drafts and waits for you to send.
Context file
Priorities, people and writing voice in a file you can edit.
Personal skills
Inbox triage, meeting briefs, updates and decision memos.
Where the setup leads.
Each next step has its own service.
Before you ask.
Which assistant do you set up?
Usually 
Claude, connected to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 and your CRM. If your company already works with another assistant, we set up that one.
Can it send mail on my behalf?
Only if you decide it may. By default it drafts and you send. You can allow sending for one kind of message, such as meeting confirmations, and keep everything else for yourself.
What about confidential mail?
We agree with you, and with your IT lead where needed, which accounts, folders and labels it may read. Board and HR folders often stay out at first.
How much of my time does the week take?
About four hours: a kick-off, the context session and short daily check-ins while you use it on real work.
Can my executive assistant be involved?
Yes, and it often works best that way. Your assistant or chief of staff joins the context session and learns to keep the skills and context up to date.