I Cut 90% of My OpenClaw Setup and Found Peace (The Minimal Executive Assistant)

The most common mistake people make with OpenClaw: they try to automate everything.

One builder on X put it perfectly: “I’ve cut away 90% of what I was doing with OpenClaw. My current system is minimal and zero BS. I can’t waste time with anything that just doesn’t work.”

His result: “Actually finding peace in my life.”

That’s the post. Everything else is setup instructions.

The Minimal Executive Assistant Stack

Three tools. That’s it.

• Google Calendar — connected via CalDAV
• Trello — connected via API key + secret token
• One morning habit — a brain dump into your OpenClaw agent

No Notion. No Zapier. No 47-step automation. Just the three things that actually control your day.

Why This Works

Most productivity systems fail because they require you to maintain them. The moment life gets busy, the system collapses and you’re back to sticky notes and inbox guilt.

This system runs itself because OpenClaw is the maintenance layer. You dump your brain every morning. The agent does the organizing, the scheduling, and the task routing. You react to your calendar instead of trying to remember what you were supposed to do.

It’s the 1990s CEO model: you have three executive assistants. One manages your calendar. One manages your tasks. One keeps track of everything you’re supposed to follow up on. Except your assistants work 24/7 and don’t need benefits.

Setup: Google Calendar via CalDAV

CalDAV is the protocol that lets OpenClaw read and write your Google Calendar directly — no Zapier, no third-party middleware.

Step 1: Get your CalDAV URL

In Google Calendar, go to Settings → your calendar → Integrate calendar → copy the Secret address in iCal format.

It looks like: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/your-email.../private-.../basic.ics

Step 2: Add it to your OpenClaw agent’s TOOLS.md or skill

### Calendar
CalDAV URL: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/...
Access: read + write
Timezone: America/Chicago

Tell your agent: “When I give you tasks or commitments, block time on my calendar.”

Setup: Trello via API

Trello’s API is dead simple and well-documented.

Step 1: Get your credentials

Go to trello.com/app-key → copy your API Key → generate a Token.

Step 2: Add to your agent

### Trello
API Key: your-key-here
Token: your-token-here
Default board: [your board name or ID]

Step 3: Tell the agent your board structure

Keep it simple. One board with three lists: This Week, Next Week, Someday. The agent routes tasks to the right list based on urgency.

The Morning Brain Dump Habit

Every morning — before email, before Slack — open your OpenClaw DM and dump everything in your head.

Not organized. Not prioritized. Just everything.

“Need to follow up with Sarah about the proposal. Have a dentist appointment sometime this month, need to confirm the date. That feature request from the client keeps nagging me. Need to review the contract before end of week. Forgot to pay the electric bill.”

Your agent reads this, then:

1. Pulls your existing calendar and open Trello cards
2. Identifies what’s new, what’s time-sensitive, what can wait
3. Creates Trello cards for tasks
4. Blocks calendar time for the things that need dedicated focus
5. Sends back a clean daily priority list

The whole thing takes 3-5 minutes. Your day is organized before you’ve opened your inbox.

Model Selection: Speed Matters Here

For this use case, you want a fast model for the morning routine — you don’t want to wait 30 seconds for your priority list while you’re still half-asleep.

What’s working well right now:

• Gemini Flash 3 Preview — fast, good personality, excellent tool calls. Best for the daily brain dump and routine tasks.
• Claude Opus 4.6 — better for complex reasoning, planning multi-week projects, anything that needs more depth.

Set Gemini Flash as primary, Opus as fallback for heavy lifts. Your morning brain dump will feel instant.

In your OpenClaw config:

{
  "model": {
    "primary": "google-gemini-cli/gemini-3-flash-preview",
    "fallbacks": ["anthropic/claude-opus-4-6"]
  }
}

The Weekly Reset (The Missing Piece)

The morning brain dump handles the day. But tasks accumulate. Priorities shift. Trello cards go stale.

Add a Friday reset prompt to your weekly habit:

“It’s Friday. Review my Trello board and flag anything that’s been sitting in ‘This Week’ for more than 7 days without movement. Move it to ‘Someday’ or delete it. Give me a summary of what we actually got done this week.”

This keeps the system honest. Nothing accumulates. The board stays useful instead of becoming a graveyard of good intentions.

What You Actually Need to Start

The Agent Ops Toolkit includes pre-built agent configs and skill templates that you can customize for this setup — CalDAV integration patterns, Trello API handlers, and morning routine prompt structures.

Start there, then trim it down to what you actually use. The best OpenClaw setup is the one that’s so minimal you don’t have to think about it.

You want the feeling of a 1990s CEO with three executive assistants. You don’t want to spend your weekends maintaining your productivity system.

Get the Agent Ops Toolkit ($29) — the fastest path to a working setup.

Inspired by @_MaxBlade on X.