Claude runs my calendar, my content, and half my mental load now. But on day one, I had no idea what I was doing.
Here's the part nobody tells you: I didn't start this way. I figured it out slowly, one clumsy try at a time. If I could hand my first-day self a cheat sheet, this would be it.
Three steps. No course, no prompt library, no 47 tabs of tutorials. Here's what I'd hand my first-day self.
1. Brain dump everything into one file
The first thing to fix is the thing nobody warns you about: re-explaining your life every single time. Your job, your kids, your chaos, who eats what, when the pickups are. Say it once and never again.
Tell it everything. Not a tidy version, the real one. Then have it save all of it to one file it can always pull from.
Make it a real file on your computer
This is the part that makes it stick. You want the brain dump living in an actual file on your machine, not buried in an old chat you'll never find again. Here's the whole thing:
- Make a folder somewhere you'll remember. Mine is just called "Me."
- Point Claude at that folder and say: "Create a file called about-me.md in this folder."
- Dump everything in. Then tell it: "Read this file before you help me with anything."
Now it's yours. It doesn't disappear, you can edit it any time, and every future conversation starts with Claude already knowing you.
Let it interview you
Here's the trick if staring at a blank file feels like homework: don't write the brain dump. Let Claude pull it out of you.
Then you just answer, out loud. Which is the easiest way to do this whole thing.
Connect the apps you already live in
The brain dump is what you tell it. Connectors are what it can see on its own. These are the apps that run your life, your calendar, your email, your notes, and you plug them in so Claude draws from the real thing instead of guessing.
Start with the two that hold the most of your life. For me that's my calendar and my email. Turn those on first, add the rest when you actually feel the need.
2. Talk to it like a person
The thing that keeps most people stuck is waiting to learn the "right" way to prompt. There isn't one. The perfect prompt is not a thing.
Hit the microphone and ramble. Or type like you're texting a friend who happens to be very capable and never annoyed. Both work.
You don't need to sound smart. You need to say what you actually want, and what you're actually worried about. That's the whole skill.
3. Set up one automation
This is the test. Pick one annoying weekly task, the kind that quietly nags at you all week, and hand it over. If your life is easier by Friday, you'll never go back.
You set these up in Cowork, under Scheduled Tasks. Here's where it lives:
Do it once, like this:
- Open Cowork and go to Scheduled Tasks.
- Click New task.
- Describe it in plain language, the way you'd tell an assistant. For example: "Every Friday at 4pm, look at my week and send me a short review of what got done and what's still open."
- Set when it runs and how often. Once a week is plenty to start.
- Save it. That's it. It now runs on its own.
Start with the one that drains you most. A Friday review, a Monday plan, a morning brief. One is enough to feel the difference.
What to know going in
- You don't need a course. You need one file, one honest conversation, and one task handed off.
- Messy is fine. The first version of everything is rough. You're building a relationship, not passing a test.
- Start before you feel ready. The whole thing gets easier the second you actually open the app.
You don't have to figure out all of AI. You just have to start here, with three steps.
Start with the brain dump tonight. It's the one step everything else builds on, and it's the one that felt like magic the first time it remembered something I never had to repeat. Once these three click, here's how to turn them into an hour back, every day.