When do you get a Mentor Brief?

A Mentor Brief arrives only when more than half of the pillars you use carry a confirmed pattern at the same time. That makes it rare by design: you get at most eight in a calendar month, and while you work a Brief’s plan, no new one is written unless more of your pillars confirm the pattern.

The limits on how often

• At most eight a month. The count resets each calendar month.
• Five days between Briefs. The next Brief can come five days after the last one at the earliest. If no Brief is live in that gap, the overview says “Your last Brief is still fresh” and gives the date.
• A plan you are working is protected. Once you add a Brief’s plan to your goals, no new Brief is written before the plan’s due date unless more of your pillars confirm the pattern.
• A stronger reading replaces a Brief you have not added. If one more pillar confirms the pattern before you add the plan, the Mentor writes that Brief again with the stronger reading.
• Fresh evidence first. After a Brief, each pillar has to confirm its pattern again on new days before the next one. The overview shows this as “Re-reading on new data”.

What the overview says while you wait

With no live Brief, the top card of the overview says where the reading stands:

• All quiet: nothing is pulling in one direction. That is a good reading, not a missing one.
• One thing worth watching: one pillar has started to move against your own range.
• Something may be forming: several pillars are moving, none confirmed yet.
• One pattern confirmed or 2 patterns confirmed: the card says how many more pillars would have to agree.

The Next Brief card shows each pillar in one word, such as Stable, Watching or Re-checking. Tap it to see what each pillar measured, for example “Consecutive due days with nothing completed, on your own schedule.”

When each pillar starts counting

A pillar joins the reading once it has something to read:

Until then, the pillar shows how far along it is, such as “1 of 3 days with tasks”. At the foot of the overview, Not in the reading yet lists the pillars you could still bring in, each with a button: Write an entry, Start a daily read, Add goal, Open Preferences or, for health, Connect.

Control what the Brief reads

The journal pillar has its own switch, and it is on by default.

1. Open Profile from your picture on Home, then Preferences.
2. Under Mentor, find Journal for the Mentor Brief.

With it on, the Mentor reads the text of your entries from the last 14 days to find themes that come up more than once. The text itself is not stored. Turn the switch off and nothing from your journal is read for the Brief.

The health pillar reads only what you allowed in Apple Health or Health Connect, and you can change that access in those apps at any time. Without health data, a Brief is written from the pillars you do use. See Connect Apple Health to FocusPilot or Connect Health Connect on Android.