Part 2 of a 2-part series. Start with Part 1: Claude, Cowork, and Code — what's the difference? →

Part 1 covered the concepts: one Claude desktop app, three modes (Chat, Cowork, Code), and the standing context — Instructions and Projects — that turns Claude from an assistant into a co-worker. This post is the hands-on half. By the end you'll have it installed, configured in your voice, and you'll have run a real task.

Budget about an hour for the whole thing. You only do most of it once. And keep the framing from Part 1 in mind: Claude is a force-multiplier, not a magic wand. You're still making the calls, and you're still checking the work before it goes out the door.

Step 1 — Install the desktop app

Go to claude.com/download and grab the desktop app for Mac or Windows.

Install it, open it, and sign in. You'll need a paid Claude plan ($20/mo or higher) — the free version doesn't include Cowork, and it limits you to a mid-tier model.

One heads-up on finding your way around, because the design doesn't help you: you'll see 'Home' and 'Code' at the top. With 'Home' highlighted, the Chat and Cowork choices sit underneath the "How can I help you today?" box. There's also a model dropdown to the right: Fable and Opus are the most advanced, good for complex thinking. Sonnet is great for everyday tasks, and Haiku is the simplest, but also fastest. Great for comparisons, classification, etc. The more advanced the model, the more tokens it uses - in other words, the faster you'll use up your quota. Sonnet is fine while you're learning.

While you're here, select the folder that you want Cowork to access - it'll be limited to what's in that folder, and you can change it or add other folders if needed.

Step 2 — Set your "Instructions for Claude"

Before you do anything else, give Claude a standing brief about you. This is the single highest-leverage five minutes in the whole setup.

Click on your username in the bottom left, click Settings → General → Instructions for Claude. Here's where you write a short brief that loads into every chat automatically. Keep it tight — it applies to everything you do, so it should only contain things that are true everywhere. This is where you'll have to decide what level of detail you want - if you're using it just for one business, include business details here. If you're using it for multiple businesses, or for personal projects, you'll include those details at the project level.

Cover four things:

Who you are and what your business does — two or three sentences.
How you want Claude to communicate — tone, length, formatting. ("Plain English, no jargon. Get to the point. Don't pad.")
What tools you use — so Claude stops suggesting ones you don't.
What NOT to do — this is the most useful part. Banning a habit works better than describing the ideal.

Here's a fill-in-the-blanks starting point you can paste in and edit:

I run [business], a [what you do] serving [who you serve]. I'm not technical — explain things in plain English and skip the jargon.
When you write for me: keep it direct and concrete, lead with the answer, and match a warm but no-nonsense tone. Use real numbers and examples over vague claims. Make sure you sound human - avoid any typical AI tropes (e.g. "it's not X, it's Y", "Simple. Direct. Just what your clients want", "The honest assessment..." , "Genuinely important", etc). If you're not sure or you're guessing, say so.
Tools I use: [your email, your calendar, your CRM, your website platform, etc.].
Do NOT: write in choppy three-sentence bursts, use corporate buzzwords ("leverage," "synergy," "best-in-class"), over-promise, or pad word count.

Save it. From now on every chat, Cowork task, and Code session starts already knowing who you are, how to answer you, and how you write. The single best habit here: every time Claude gets something wrong in a way that'll come up again, add one line to your Instructions. It compounds fast.

While you're in Settings, one more thing: this is also where Claude's memory feature lives. I keep it turned off — I covered why in Part 1, but the short version is that it saves things you never decided to save, and they resurface in unrelated work months later. Instructions and Projects give you memory you actually control.

Step 3 — Run your first task in Cowork

Now feel what makes it a co-worker. Cowork is where Claude does real work on your actual files, so start with something low-stakes and genuinely useful.

Good first tasks:

"Organize my Downloads folder — group files into folders by type and rename anything cryptic."
"Here are 20 receipt PDFs in this folder. Pull them into one spreadsheet with date, vendor, amount, and category."
"Read these documents and draft a one-page summary I can send to my marketing team."

Point Claude at the folder you want it to work in (you control exactly which folders it can touch), describe the outcome, and watch what happens next: Claude shows you a plan before it does anything. Read the plan. If it's right, approve it and Claude does the work. If it's not, tell it what to change. Nothing happens to your files until you say go.

That plan-then-approve loop is the whole trust model. You're never handing over the keys — you're approving each move. After a couple of tasks it stops feeling like magic and starts feeling like delegating to a fast, careful assistant.

Step 4 — Set up a Project

Instructions tell Claude who you are everywhere. A Project tells it everything about one specific slice of your work — a client, a recurring job, a particular kind of writing.

Create a Project and give it two things:

Project instructions — the context specific to this work. For a client project: who they are, their brand voice, what you're doing for them, what to avoid. This stacks on top of your global Instructions.
Files — upload the reference material Claude should treat as source of truth. Your (or your client's) brand guide, your price list, a few past examples of the work done right, a spec sheet. Claude reads these every time and can quote them directly.

A simple one to start: a "My Business" project with your services, pricing, a few FAQs, and two or three pieces of writing that sound like you. Now anytime you draft something inside that project — a proposal, an email, a post — it starts from your real details and your real voice instead of generic guesses.

This is how the work stays consistent. You set the context once; every session in that project inherits it.

Step 5 — What about Claude Code?

Claude Code is the same plan-then-approve idea pointed at building things — websites, tools, apps — rather than getting everyday work done. It's the deeper end of the pool, and my advice from Part 1 stands: unless you're fairly technical, stick with Cowork. It covers the vast majority of what a small business owner needs. Once you've got the hang of Cowork, and you're feeling adventurous, you can try Code.

At that point, maybe you're thinking, "I wish I could build..." — a calculator for your quotes, a new offering on your website, a small app to help with repetitive work — Code will be sitting right there in the same desktop app, and the same instincts apply: describe the outcome, read the plan, check the work. (This whole site was built and edited in Claude Code, so the ceiling is high when you're ready for it.)

A few further thoughts

Start small - Ask for some summaries, the creation of a spreadsheet, etc. As you get comfortable with the small stuff, you can ask for bigger things.
Read the plan before you approve it. Claude is fast and pretty good, but still needs your input. The thirty seconds you spend reading the plan saves you the hour of cleaning up a wrong turn.
Only grant access to the folders you mean to. Claude can only touch what you point it at, so "start small" applies here. You can always expand as you get comfortable.
Don't delegate the judgment. Claude executes a clear request well and a vague one badly. The thinking — what to do, what good looks like, what to skip — stays yours. That's the half that matters.
Keep sensitive stuff in mind. It's working on your real files. Be deliberate about what you let it see, the same way you would with a new employee or contractor.
It costs money. A paid Claude plan runs $20–$200 a month depending on your use. To start, the $20/mo plan should be plenty. If you get to needing the $100/mo (or higher), you're likely leaning on it pretty hard, so it'll be worth the upgrade.

Where to go from here

Start small. Set your Instructions, run one Cowork task this week, and build one Project for your business. That's enough to feel whether this fits how you work. Once it clicks, the projects get more ambitious on their own — that's been my experience, and it's how this entire website got built.

Remember - the point was never to replace your judgment with AI. It's to take the work that eats your week — the organizing, the drafting, the formatting — and hand it to a co-worker that multiplies what you get done, while the standards stay yours.

Missed Part 1? Claude, Cowork, and Code: what's the difference? →

Want help figuring out where AI actually fits in your business? Run the free 3-minute Website Audit — you'll get a personalized report with your top three highest-impact AI opportunities, ranked.

How to actually set up Claude as your co-worker (a step-by-step guide)