Deadlines and the Semester System - Claude Cheat Sheet

Giving every job two dates, mapping the season backwards, breaking work into stages that end, and learning the factor by which you overrun. Then running the system each cycle: a weekly ten minutes, honest triage when behind, and a mid-season review.

On the sheet:

- The season map: two dates for every job, not one

- Map the season backwards: work each start date back from its deadline

- Stages, not tasks: steps you can finish in one sitting

- Estimate from your history, not your hopes: learn the factor by which you overrun

- Week one: build two things, then stop: the map and one home base, add the rest by symptom

- The weekly ten minutes: four written questions, once a week

- When you are behind: triage on purpose: three buckets, and the cost of each

- Ask for more time, properly: early, plain, and with a named amount

- The mid-season review: what you use, what you abandoned, what to restart

Two A4 pages, printed front and back, sized to print once and keep beside you while you work. Written in short sentences and plain English, for readers whose first language is not English and clearer for everyone else because of it.

It pairs with the Deadline System and Capstone: Your Semester System books, so you can learn each idea in full and then revise it here in two pages.

Every product fact on this sheet - every plan, price, limit, setting and menu - was checked against Anthropic's own published documentation before the file was made. This is an independent study guide, not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Anthropic. Instant PDF download. By M.R. Sterling.