Desk Pen Cup Audit Card
Purpose
Use this prompt-only skill when a user wants a small, privacy-conscious card for resetting a desk pen cup, pencil jar, marker holder, or similar writing-tool container. The deliverable is a practical audit card: what to keep, test, refill, relocate, discard, and check again later.
This skill supports ordinary desk organization only. It does not inventory private documents, collect personal notes, analyze handwriting, review workplace records, or decide whether a sensitive item should be kept for legal, tax, school, or employment reasons.
Safety Boundary
Do not collect, transcribe, summarize, photograph, or expose personal notes, sticky notes, receipts, business cards, ID cards, medicine labels, addresses, passwords, account numbers, or other sensitive desk contents found near or inside the cup.
If a private paper item or labeled item appears during the audit, describe it only as a generic private item and set it aside for the user to review. Do not infer meaning from names, numbers, reminders, annotations, or scraps of text.
For sharp items such as scissors, craft knives, thumbtacks, pins, or broken pencil points, include a simple caution to handle carefully and store them separately from loose pens. Do not give workplace security, legal retention, or personal-data disposal advice.
Core Principles
- Keep only writing tools that are useful at the desk.
- Test pens and markers quickly instead of guessing.
- Separate writing tools from sharp, sticky, messy, or unrelated items.
- Avoid reading or recording anything private found in the cup.
- Make the reset small enough to finish in ten minutes.
- Leave one simple maintenance rule so the cup does not refill with clutter.
Required Inputs
Ask for practical details without requesting private content:
- The container type: cup, mug, jar, drawer cup, tray, or shared holder.
- Main use: writing, planning, art, schoolwork, shipping labels, meetings, or mixed use.
- Tool types present: ballpoint pens, gel pens, pencils, markers, highlighters, styluses, scissors, clips, rulers, or other supplies.
- Whether the user wants a minimal cup, a backup-heavy cup, or a color-coded cup.
- Any constraints: shared desk, child-accessible area, pet-accessible area, small desk, or frequent meetings.
- Preferred cadence: weekly, monthly, or when the cup is crowded.
Do not ask the user to share the contents of notes, labels, cards, or private papers.
Workflow
- Empty only the container. Place contents on a clear surface. Keep private paper items face-down or in a separate user-review pile without reading them.
- Create quick zones. Use keep, test, refill, relocate, discard, and private review piles.
- Test writing tools. Make a small scribble test on scrap paper for pens, pencils, markers, and highlighters. Do not use a private document as test paper.
- Sort by role. Keep daily writing tools in the cup. Move rarely used tools, art supplies, shipping tools, or duplicates to a better storage place.
- Separate hazards and mess. Remove sharp items, leaking pens, uncapped markers, sticky items, dried glue, and loose staples from the pen cup.
- Set capacity. Pick a maximum count or fill line so the cup stays easy to use.
- Build the audit card. Produce a compact card with zones, test rules, discard triggers, refill notes, and a repeat cadence.
Sorting Guidance
Use conservative, practical categories:
- Keep in cup: reliable daily pens, one pencil, one marker or highlighter if used often, and any favorite tool that belongs at hand.
- Test: uncertain pens, faint markers, dry highlighters, mechanical pencils, and erasers.
- Refill or fix later: refillable pens, mechanical pencils needing lead, capped markers needing a quick check, or tools missing a cap.
- Relocate: scissors, rulers, tape, clips, art tools, spare refills, stamps, cables, coins, keys, and items that do not need to live in the cup.
- Discard: dead pens, dried markers, broken pencils, leaking tools, cracked caps, mystery debris, and trash.
- Private review: notes, receipts, cards, labels, or any item with personal information. Do not read or summarize them.
Output Format
Return a desk pen cup audit card with these sections:
- Goal
- One sentence describing the desired cup: minimal daily writing kit, color-coded toolkit, shared station, or backup holder.
- Privacy Rule
- Do not read or record personal notes or labels.
- Put private paper items in a user-review pile.
- Five-Minute Sort Zones
- Keep
- Test
- Refill
- Relocate
- Discard
- Private review
- Writing Tool Test
- Quick scribble test
- Keep if smooth and useful
- Discard if dry, leaking, broken, or unreliable
- Cup Capacity Rule
- Maximum number of tools or a fill-line rule
- Daily-use tools only
- Relocation List
- Sharp items, clips, cables, art extras, refills, coins, keys, and unrelated supplies
- Reset Checklist
- Wipe cup if dusty
- Return only keep items
- Store refill items together
- Discard dead tools
- Schedule next audit
Example Prompts
- "Audit my desk pen cup — I'm tired of grabbing dead pens."
- "Sort my pencil jar: keep the good ones, get rid of the duds."
- "Help me clean out my marker holder and make a reset card for it."
Quality Bar
A strong result is short enough to follow at a desk, firm about privacy, and useful without turning into a full office inventory. It should leave the user with a pen cup that contains working tools, not private papers, sharp clutter, dead pens, or random debris.