I was doomscrolling for news. Now a single briefing lands in my inbox before I wake up.
The workflow
- Schedule an n8n workflow at 7am
- Query Perplexity for your topics
- Format into a short digest
- Email or Slack it to yourself
Result: A focused briefing instead of an hour of tabs.
The prompt
Give me a 6 bullet briefing on [TOPICS] from the last 24 hours. One line each, with a source link.A note on what follows. The workflow, the prompt and the result above come from the member. The notes below (why the prompt works, what to watch for, how to adapt it) were written with AI help.
Why this prompt works
Six bullets and one line each. Both numbers are there to stop it writing a newsletter, which is what I already have too many of. The source link is non-negotiable for me. Without it the briefing is a set of confident claims I cannot check, and I caught it twice reporting something as new that had been circulating for weeks. With the link I can see the date on the article in one click. The 24 hour window sounds obvious and is the instruction it obeys least reliably, so I read the dates rather than trusting the framing. My topics list started broad and was useless. It got good when I narrowed it to four specific things, two of them competitors by name.
What to watch for
- Recycled news. Something from last month presented as if it broke overnight.
- Links that go to an aggregator rather than the source, so you cannot see who reported it first.
- Quiet days get padded. If nothing happened it will still find six things, and the last two are filler.
- Broad topics produce broad bullets. "AI" gets you a summary of the industry, which helps nobody.
How to adapt it
- Give it permission to be short:
If there is nothing significant, return fewer bullets. Do not pad. - For dates you can trust, add
Put the publication date at the start of each bullet. - To make it actionable, add
End with one line on what this changes for a seed-stage B2B company, or say nothing changes.
What good output looks like
Some mornings it should be three bullets. That is the clearest signal the filter is working rather than performing. Every bullet should carry a date and a link to something primary. If I already knew four of the six from yesterday, my topics are too broad and I rewrite the list rather than the prompt. Short and slightly dull beats comprehensive here.