Signs you have built too much
- You have skills or custom GPTs you have not opened in a month.
- You cannot remember which one does what, so you start a plain chat anyway.
- You fix or tweak the setup more often than you use it.
- You keep installing other people's skills to see what they do.
The setup that is enough
- A new chat for each job. Say what you need, what good looks like and who it is for. Most work needs nothing more.
- One Project for what you keep re-explaining. Your business, your clients, your tone. Set it up once and stop pasting it.
- A skill only for a job you do every week, the same way each time. When you catch yourself making the same corrections again, turn that chat into a skill.
Anything outside those three can go.
Clear out the rest, step by step
- List everything you have. Skills, Projects, custom GPTs, plugins and saved prompts. In Claude, skills are under Customize, then Skills. In ChatGPT, Skills sit under Plugins, then the Skills tab, on eligible Business, Enterprise, Healthcare and Edu workspaces. On a personal Free or Plus plan, clear custom GPTs, Projects and saved prompts instead.
- Ask two questions of each one. Did I use it in the last month? Does it hold something of mine that the AI would not know, such as my format, my rules or my clients' details?
- Keep the ones with two yeses. Merge any that overlap, and delete the rest. Copy any line worth saving into a note first.
This prompt runs those three steps for you. Paste in your list, and it sorts every item into keep, merge or delete with a reason, checks which of your weekly jobs have nothing serving them, and hands you the short list. It never deletes anything itself.
You are helping me cut my AI setup down to the things that actually earn their place. I have collected skills, projects, custom GPTs, plugins, connectors and saved prompts faster than I use them, and every extra one costs me time to maintain and makes it harder to find the few that matter. Be honest and specific: a polite "keep everything" is no help to me. WHAT I HAVE (fill this in once) - My list: [paste every item, one per line, with its name and a line on what it does. E.g. "Email tone skill: rewrites my emails in my voice", "Client project: holds my two clients' briefs and brand rules", "Research GPT: finds sources on a topic", "Blog outline prompt: saved in my notes". Paste the actual instructions for any item you are unsure about. Or write "look in my skills folder" if you are working somewhere that can see it, such as Claude Code] - When I last used each one: [e.g. "Email tone: this week", "Research GPT: sometime in spring", "Blog outline: never since I saved it". Write "not sure" rather than guessing] - The tools I use them in: [e.g. "Claude on the web and Claude Code", "ChatGPT Plus", "both"] - The jobs I do most weeks: [three to five, e.g. "client update emails", "social posts from my blog", "invoices and chasing payments". This tells you what the setup is for] HOW TO WORK THROUGH IT STEP 1: READ THE LIST BACK If I asked you to look in my skills folder, list what you find with each description first, then ask me when I last used each one, since you cannot know that. List every item in a table with its name, what it holds in one line, when I last used it, and which of my weekly jobs it serves (or "none of the jobs listed"). If an item's description is too thin to tell what it does, write [NEED: paste its instructions] and do not sort it until I do. STEP 2: SORT EACH ITEM Put every item into exactly one pile, with one line of reasons: - KEEP: it holds my own way of doing things that no general model would know (my format, my rules, my checklist, my clients' details), and I used it in the last month. - MERGE: it overlaps with another item. Name the item it should merge into and say which parts to carry over. - DELETE: it mostly tells the model to do something it already does well on its own (e.g. "write clearly", "you are an expert researcher", "summarise this"), or I have not used it in over a month and it serves none of my weekly jobs. If an item fits KEEP on content but I have not used it in over a month, put it under KEEP and add "check you still need this". If I wrote "not sure" for when I last used something, treat it as not used in the last month and add "check you still need this". If you cannot judge an item from what I gave you, mark it [NEED: what you need to decide] instead of guessing. For each DELETE, tell me if any line in it is worth copying into a KEEP item or a note first. STEP 3: CHECK FOR GAPS Look at my weekly jobs. If one of them has nothing in the KEEP pile serving it and I seem to redo the same set-up for it each time, name it under "Possibly worth building later", with one line on why. Suggest at most two, and build nothing. STEP 4: GIVE ME THE SHORT LIST Show the final list as it would look after the changes: the KEEP items plus the merged versions, each with one line on what it is for. Then give the counts: how many kept, merged and deleted. End with one line on the whole setup: too much, about right, or too thin for the jobs I listed. If it is already small, say so and do not push me to cut. RULES - Never delete, edit or move anything yourself, even if you can reach my files or settings. Give me the list and I will make the changes. - Never invent what an item does or when I used it. If it is not in what I pasted, write [NOT STATED]. - Judge on what each item holds and how recently I used it, never on how clever or long it looks. CHECK YOUR SORTING BEFORE YOU SHOW ME - Every item from my list appears in exactly one pile or is marked [NEED]. - Every MERGE names the item it merges into. - Name the one item you are least sure you sorted correctly, and say what would change your mind.
The honest bit
- A simple setup leans on a strong model. AI founder Matt Shumer, who made this case on X on 15 September 2026, added his own condition: "If you're using the best models available". On a free plan, a saved prompt with your checks written in does more of the work for you.
- A month is a rule of thumb. Keep anything you use once a quarter on purpose, such as a tax or year-end job.
Do it today
Open your list of skills, ask the two questions, and delete one thing you have not used in a month.
A few quick questions
What if I delete something I need later?
Copy its text into a note before you delete it. A skill or a saved prompt is only a text file, so you can put it back in a minute.
Does this work for ChatGPT too?
Yes. Ask the same two questions of your custom GPTs, projects and saved prompts.