AI Guides › Playbooks
By Nigel Guy · 7 min read
Most people who try to "automate their week" with Claude collect a long list of commands, paste the first few, enjoy the novelty and stop. Twenty-five prompts is a catalogue, not a system. The thing that actually saves hours is a small number of repeat jobs, each one proven by hand before it is allowed to run on a timer, and that is the part the lists leave out.
The rule: never schedule a task you have not run by hand three times, and never hand over a job you could not check in two minutes.
Each repeat job climbs four rungs. Skipping a rung is how you end up with a Monday report nobody trusts.
| Rung | What you do | What you are testing |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Run once | Type the prompt in a normal Cowork session, with only the files or connectors it needs | Does it understand the job at all? |
| 2. Tighten | Fix the output format, add "ask me if X is missing", add what it must not touch | Is the result the same shape each time? |
| 3. Run three times | Use it on three real weeks of input, checking each result yourself | Does it hold up on messy input? |
| 4. Schedule | Save it as a scheduled task with the final prompt | Can you review it in two minutes? |
Pick work that is repetitive, has a predictable input and produces something you only need to skim. Good first candidates are a weekly digest of one inbox label or channel, a folder sort, and a weekly summary of a document you already keep. Poor first candidates are anything that sends, deletes or publishes on your behalf.
Before you start, check what Cowork needs. At time of writing, Cowork is on paid plans only (Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise). Claude's pricing page lists Pro at $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually ($200 upfront), and Max from $100 a month: roughly £15, £13 and £75 at time of writing, but check the £ price at checkout because currency and tax vary. Anthropic's help pages also say Cowork is now rolling out as part of ordinary Claude conversations on Pro and Max, so the separate "Cowork" button may not appear for you. If you cannot see one, start a normal conversation and describe the task.
Fill in this card before you test anything. Paste the filled-in version in the prompt below.
You are my weekly operations assistant. I will give you a recurring job and you will do it the same way every time.
JOB: [ONE_SENTENCE_DESCRIPTION_OF_THE_JOB]
INPUTS YOU MAY USE: [FOLDER_NAME_OR_CONNECTORS_YOU_ARE_ALLOWED_TO_USE]
INPUTS YOU MUST NOT TOUCH: [FOLDERS_OR_APPS_OFF_LIMITS]
WHAT A GOOD RESULT LOOKS LIKE: [FORMAT_LENGTH_AND_WHO_IT_IS_FOR]
HOW I WILL CHECK IT: [WHAT_I_WILL_SKIM_FOR_IN_TWO_MINUTES]
Rules:
1. If any input above is missing, empty or ambiguous, stop and ask me before doing anything.
2. Do not send, delete, move or publish anything unless I explicitly list that action under JOB.
3. Mark anything you inferred rather than read as "Assumed:".
4. Do not invent figures, names or dates. If a source does not say, write "not stated".
Before you answer, check your output against "What a good result looks like" and list any part you could not complete.
Fill in the five bracketed lines. The "ask me first" rule matters most: a scheduled task that guesses is worse than one that fails.
You have a downloads or "to file" folder you keep avoiding. In Cowork you grant access to a specific local folder, and Claude only sees what you allow, so create a dedicated working folder rather than pointing it at your whole documents drive.
Role: tidy-up assistant for the folder I have shared with you.
Goal: propose a filing plan for [FOLDER_NAME] without changing anything yet.
Steps:
1. List what is in the folder: file names, types and last-modified dates.
2. Propose a folder structure of no more than [MAX_FOLDERS] top-level folders, using these categories where they fit: [YOUR_CATEGORIES].
3. Show a table: current name, proposed new name, proposed folder.
4. Flag duplicates and anything you cannot classify.
Constraints: do not move, rename or delete anything until I reply "approved". Ask me if the categories above are blank.
Self-check: confirm every file appears exactly once in your table.
Run it, read the table, then reply "approved" for the first few sessions. That is rung 3. A folder job needs a local folder, which affects scheduling (see the catch below).
Role: chief of staff preparing my Monday brief.
Goal: a one-page briefing for the week of [DATE] covering [CONNECTED_SOURCES, e.g. calendar, one email label, one channel].
Steps:
1. List this week's meetings with who is attending and what I need to prepare.
2. List open threads that are waiting on me, oldest first.
3. List anything with a deadline in the next seven days.
Format: three headed sections, bullets only, maximum [WORD_LIMIT] words, a source named after each bullet.
Constraints: read only; do not reply to, archive or label anything. If a source is not connected, say which one and carry on with the rest.
Self-check: every bullet must name its source.
Role: analyst summarising my own material.
Goal: turn [DOCUMENTS_OR_NOTES_THIS_WEEK] into a [FORMAT, e.g. one-page update for my team].
Steps: extract decisions, open questions and numbers; group by [PROJECT_OR_THEME]; write the update in [TONE].
Constraints: use only the supplied material; quote figures exactly as they appear; mark gaps as "not stated"; ask me if the audience is unclear.
Self-check: re-read each number against its source before answering.
Role: assistant helping me close the week.
Goal: a closing note I can read in two minutes.
Inputs: [FOLDER_OR_NOTES_FOR_THE_WEEK]
Output: what got done, what slipped and why (only if the material says why), and three candidate priorities for next week, labelled as suggestions.
Constraints: no invented reasons; ask me for anything missing.
According to Anthropic's help centre, scheduled tasks are available in Cowork on Claude Desktop for paid plans. In the sidebar, click Scheduled, then New task.
The help page lists hourly, daily, weekly, weekdays-only and manual frequencies. From Scheduled you can review runs, edit instructions, pause, resume, delete or run a task on demand. Paste your finished Handover Card in as the prompt.
Run the task manually from Scheduled before you trust the clock. Open the resulting session, then apply your two-minute check from the card. Review the first two scheduled runs in full. If you ever spend more than two minutes verifying one, the job is too big: split it.
This area has changed, so read the current help page. Anthropic's article now says scheduled tasks run remotely, work with your connectors and files saved to your Claude account, and cannot be tied to a folder on your computer; if a task needs local files or apps it will run locally. An earlier version of the same guidance said tasks only run while your computer is awake and Desktop is open, and skipped runs happen once it wakes. I could not confirm which behaviour applies to every setup, so test one run with your computer asleep before you rely on it. The folder sort above is a local job: treat it as a manual weekly task.