[Day 2 of 30] 1% Better: How Skills Turn Your System Into Memory

The situation

You set up your one place and your inbox. Now you have a pile of stuff: tasks, ideas, things to answer. The problem is that the AI does not remember how you want that pile handled. Every time you open a new chat, you explain again: “Sort this into urgent, project, and reference.” Or “Convert this file to Markdown so the system can work with it.” Skills fix that. They are reusable instructions that the system loads when relevant, so the same rules run every time without you re-pasting them.

This post continues the 1% Better At AI series. If you have not read the first post, you can find it here.

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The 1% upgrade

What skills are (and how Anthropic built them)

Anthropic ships skills as folders: a main instruction file (often SKILL.md), plus optional scripts and resources. When you or the AI invokes a skill, the app loads just what it needs. That keeps things fast and keeps your context clean. Skills are not one-off prompts. They are named, versioned, and reusable. You say “use my triage skill” or “convert this to Markdown” and the agent already has the instructions. The system recalls them in the same way every time. That is how skills turn your PMS into something that remembers how you work.

What a skill is made of

• Name and description. The system uses them to decide when the skill is relevant (e.g. you say “triage my inbox” or the context mentions planning).

• Instruction set. One file with the steps for that job: what to read, what to do, in what order.

• Optional extras. Scripts or reference files in the same folder so the skill can call tools or follow checklists.

Principle: one job, one skill. Triage is one; convert-to-markdown is another. Each time you invoke a skill, the PMS loads that block and runs it the same way. No re-explaining, no copy-paste. That repeatability is what makes the system feel like it remembers.

A typical layout looks like this:

your-project/
  CLAUDE.md (or similar)  <- global instructions: who you are, how you work, always loaded
  skills/                 <- skill registry (folder)
    triage/               <- specific skill (sub-folder)
      SKILL.md            <- instructions for this skill
      checklist.md (optional), 
      references/  (optional)
    convert-to-markdown/  <- specific skill (sub-folder)
      SKILL.md            <- instructions for this skill
      (optional) scripts/ <- e.g. a small script the skill can call
    meeting-prep/         <- specific skill (sub-folder)
      SKILL.md            <- instructions for this skill

The top-level file (e.g. CLAUDE.md) is your always-on context. Under skills/, each subfolder is one skill: its SKILL.md is the instruction set; scripts and extra files sit next to it when that skill needs them.

Why Markdown.

The system works better when content is in Markdown: it can read, search, and process it without fighting formats. PDFs, Word docs, and web pages are opaque to the AI unless you convert them. Turning any file you work with into MD is a necessary structural element of your PMS.

Skills grow with your use cases

You do not need to get skills right once and freeze them. Start with a minimal version (e.g. “sort inbox into urgent, project, reference”). The first time you hit a situation you did not design for, you tell the AI how it should act in that case, then you add that behaviour into the skill file.

For example: “When an item is triaged as ‘project’, write it into the matching folder under Projects/ and append one line to that project’s backlog file.” You update the triage skill with that rule. Next time you run triage, the system already knows.

• Every new use case you capture becomes a small update to the right skill.

• The system effectively keeps learning from how you work: each time you correct, clarify, or add a rule, you are training your PMS.

• Skills are the place where that training is stored.

Two skills to start with

1. Triage. You have an inbox folder. The triage skill tells the AI how to sort what lands there: what is urgent, what belongs to a project, what is reference. One place, one rule set. You run it when the inbox grows, and the pile stays usable. You do not have to follow the standard folder structure we set up at the start. After triage, you can ask the PMS to suggest a folder structure that fits the items you just sorted: give it the batch you triaged and ask it to propose where each type of thing should live. The structure can emerge from what you actually have, not from a fixed template.

2. File to Markdown. You work with PDFs, Word docs, web clips, or emails. The system works best when that content is in Markdown: then the AI can read it, link to it, and run other skills on it. The convert-to-markdown skill tells the AI to convert the file you point to (or the content you reference) into a clean .md file in your project. You run it by saying: “Use my convert-to-markdown skill on [path or file]” or “convert this to Markdown and save it in Inbox/.” Once it is in MD, triage and other skills can work on it. This skill is a necessary structural element: it turns whatever lands on you into the format the PMS can actually use.

You add these two first. Over time you add more: calendars, mailboxes, project tools, communication tools, and so on. We will set them up together step by step later. Each skill is a small block of recall: the system knows how to behave when you call it.

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Takeaway

Skills = reusable instructions the system loads when relevant. They give your PMS memory. Keep content in Markdown so the system can work with it; start with triage and convert-to-markdown, then expand from there.

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10-minute action

1. In your project folder, create a subfolder (e.g. skills or .claude/skills if you use Claude Code).

2. Revisit your triage skill. In Day 1 you created skills/triage/SKILL.md with three buckets: Urgent (do today or has a hard deadline), Project (belongs to a specific deliverable or folder), Reference (idea or note to revisit later). Open that file now, try running it on the files in your Inbox folder (”Use my triage skill on Inbox”), then add 1–2 new rules that fit your own use case (for example, how to handle items that mention a specific person or project).

3. Add a convert-to-markdown skill. Create the folder skills/convert-to-markdown/, then paste this prompt so the AI writes the initial convert-to-markdown/SKILL.md for you:

   Copy-paste:

   “Create a file at skills/convert-to-markdown/SKILL.md with 5–10 lines that tell the AI to convert the file I point to (or the content I provide) into Markdown and save it in my project (e.g. in Inbox/ or a folder I choose). For binary files (PDF, DOCX): extract text, preserve structure (headings, lists), output clean MD. The skill should run when I say ‘Use my convert-to-markdown skill on [path or file]’ or ‘convert this to Markdown and save it in Inbox/’.”

4. Try triage. Your inbox is a file or set of files in your project (e.g. an Inbox folder). Open that file in your editor (or create it if it does not exist) and add 3–4 items, one per line, the way you would after a call or a quick capture. Example lines:

   • Reply to Sarah about the budget by EOD

   • Add competitor pricing to the Q1 roadmap doc

   • Idea: try tool X for weekly reports Your triage skill might say: Urgent = do today or has a hard deadline; Project = belongs to a specific deliverable or folder; Reference = idea or note to revisit later.

5. In your next message, say: “Use my triage skill on Inbox folder” (or “triage my inbox”). The AI reads the file and returns a sorted list. Optionally ask: “Suggest a folder structure that fits these items.”

6. Try convert-to-markdown. Pick a file you have (e.g. a PDF, a Word doc, or a note in another format). Say: “Use my convert-to-markdown skill on [path to that file] and save the result in Inbox/” (or another folder). You get an .md version in your project. From then on, the system can work with that content. Same behaviour each time.

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What to do next

Test the two skills you just added. See which use cases they already cover and which you would like to handle yourself. Try adding one: describe your use case to the AI and ask it to adapt the skill (e.g. “Add a rule to my triage skill: when an item mentions a person’s name, put it in Project and suggest which folder it belongs to”). Run the skill again and check the result. If you want help tailoring a skill to your workflow, leave a comment on this post with a short description of your use case. I will do my best to suggest or adapt the skill for you.