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Claude for Operators

Your First 30 Minutes

Last verified: 14 April 2026 | Applies to: Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise

In 30 seconds

Section titled “In 30 seconds”

This guide walks you through your first 30 minutes with Claude, from signing in to having a genuinely useful setup. You’ll enable skills, connect a tool, install your first plugin, and seed Claude with your business context. By the end, Claude will understand your role, your team, and your shorthand.

graph LR
    A["Skills (0-5 min)"] --> B["Connector (5-10 min)"]
    B --> C["Plugin (10-20 min)"]
    C --> D["Seed context (20-25 min)"]
    D --> E["Folder setup (25-30 min)"]

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”

You’ll need:

  • A Claude account on a paid plan (Pro or above for the full walkthrough)
  • Claude Desktop installed (download here)
  • One tool you want to connect (e.g., Slack, Asana, Notion, Google Drive)

Free plan users: You can follow along for the first two steps (skills and connectors). Cowork and plugins require a paid plan.

  1. Minutes 0-5: Enable skills

    Section titled “Minutes 0-5: Enable skills”
    1. Open Claude Desktop
    2. Go to Settings → Capabilities
    3. Ensure “Code execution and file creation” is enabled
    4. In the Skills section, toggle on the skills relevant to your role:
      • If you create documents: enable the document creation skills (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, PDF)
      • If you analyse data: enable the data-related skills
    5. Start a chat and try: “Create a summary table of Q1 sales by region”. Claude should produce an artifact you can download

    What just happened: You gave Claude domain knowledge. Skills are markdown instructions that make Claude behave like a specialist rather than a generalist.

  2. Minutes 5-10: Connect a tool

    Section titled “Minutes 5-10: Connect a tool”
    1. Go to Settings → Connectors (or visit claude.com/connectors)
    2. Find a tool you use daily. Slack, Asana, Notion, or Google Drive are good first choices
    3. Click the integration → Authenticate with OAuth
    4. Return to chat and try: “Show me my open tasks in Asana” (or whichever tool you connected)

    What just happened: Claude can now read from and write to your tool. It’s no longer limited to what you paste into the conversation.

  3. Minutes 10-20: Install the Productivity plugin

    Section titled “Minutes 10-20: Install the Productivity plugin”

    This is the step that changes how Claude works for you.

    1. Open the Cowork tab in Claude Desktop
    2. Select a folder for Claude to work in (create a new folder like “Claude Workspace” if needed)
    3. Go to Plugins in the Cowork sidebar → search “Productivity” → Install (Or visit claude.com/plugins to install from the web)
    4. Start a new Cowork session and type /productivity:start

    Claude creates four things:

    • TASKS.md: a task list Claude can read and update
    • CLAUDE.md: working memory for your current context
    • memory/: a directory for longer-term knowledge
    • dashboard.html: a visual overview that opens in your browser
    1. Claude will ask about your role, team, and current priorities. Be specific:

    “I’m the founder of a 10-person digital agency. My leads are Tom (accounts), Jess (design), and Ravi (dev). We’re halfway through moving from hourly billing to fixed-price retainers. Key acronyms: SOW = statement of work, WIP = work in progress, CR = change request, NPS = net promoter score.”

    This gets stored. Next session, Claude already knows.

  4. Minutes 20-25: Test the memory

    Section titled “Minutes 20-25: Test the memory”

    Once your context is seeded, test that it works:

    “Draft a message to Tom asking him to finalise the SOW for the Greenleaf account before Friday’s WIP review”

    Claude should know that Tom runs accounts, what a SOW is, and what WIP means, without you explaining.

    Try a few more:

    • “What are my current priorities?”
    • “Create a task: chase Ravi for the CR estimate on the Birch & Co project by Thursday”
    • “Open my dashboard”

  5. Minutes 25-30: Set up folder instructions

    Section titled “Minutes 25-30: Set up folder instructions”

    Create a file called CLAUDE.md in any folder where you work with Cowork. This file acts as persistent instructions that Claude reads automatically.

    Example CLAUDE.md for a project folder:

    # Project: Website Redesign
    

    ## Team
    - Lead: Sarah (ops)
    - Design: external agency (Pixel & Co)
    - Dev: outsourced to TechPartners
    

    ## Rules
    - All client-facing copy must use Australian English
    - Budget approval required for anything over $5,000
    - Weekly status updates go to the #website-redesign Slack channel
    

    ## Current status
    Phase 2 (design review). Launch target: 15 March.

    Now whenever Claude works in that folder, it follows these instructions automatically.

What you’ve set up

Section titled “What you’ve set up”

In 30 minutes, you now have:

  • Skills enabled for document and data tasks
  • A connected tool that Claude can read from and write to
  • The Productivity plugin with persistent memory of your team and context
  • Folder instructions that customise Claude’s behaviour per project

What to do next

Section titled “What to do next”
Section titled “Related”

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