Article · Foundations

Claude Basics

Which Claude to use for which job, and how to give it what it needs: you know which door to open, and how to bring your own material in.

12 min
Foundations
Claude

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Section 1

What Claude is for

Claude is our default thinking partner for strategy, writing, and research. It is for everyone, and it fits the work you do every week: strategy, writing, research and review work.

Writing
Strategy

The goal is high-quality writing and thinking with less editing, not more output for its own sake.

Section 2

Where Claude is strongest

Use Claude for long documents, nuanced writing, and anything where tone matters. These are the jobs where it earns its place in your workflow.

Long documents

Contracts, transcripts, research, and long briefs. Claude reads and works with large amounts of text in one pass.

Nuanced writing

Drafts that need care: sales pages, sensitive emails, thought leadership, and anything where word choice matters.

Tone control

Describe the tone you want once in the project, and Claude holds it across the whole piece, not just the first paragraph.

Strategy and research

Thinking work: positioning, offers, planning, and reviewing material before you act on it.

Two places you will meet Claude. In your browser, which is everything described here and where most of this course happens. And Claude Code, the same Claude working directly with the files and folders on your computer, which suits multi step work that produces real documents. You will set that up in Set Up Claude. Everything in this lesson applies to both.

Section 3

The Four Doors

Where	Best for	Not for
Browser	Everyday writing, thinking, research, anything you are reading and reacting to	Work that produces a folder of files
Desktop app	The same, plus connectors to your email, calendar and files, and it stays open beside your work	Anything you want on your phone
Claude Code	Multi step projects that produce real files: campaign builds, research packs, content systems	A quick question
Mobile	Capture. Voice notes, photos of a whiteboard, an idea you do not want to lose	Building anything

Most people use the desktop app for thinking and Claude Code for building, and treat mobile as a notebook. If you are choosing one to start with, start with the desktop app.

Section 4

Bring Your Own Material

Claude only knows what you show it. Upload the things the work depends on: your brand files, a spreadsheet export, last quarter's posts, a photo of the notes from a call. A document you upload into a project stays available to every thread in that project, which is the difference between explaining your business once and explaining it every morning.

Section 5

Set up projects

Create one project for your business, and one for each client. A project is a dedicated space with its own instructions and files, and every conversation inside it starts with that context already loaded. Your business gets one. Each client gets their own, because their context is genuinely different and should never bleed across.

One project per business

Your brand voice, pricing and audience are the same whether you are writing a campaign or answering a customer. One project means you maintain that context once, not six times.

Not one giant chat

A single running conversation forgets and confuses topics. Projects keep every conversation focused.

Section 6

Add your context

Add what your business does, who it serves and how you want it to sound as project context. A few plain sentences about what you sell, who it is for and how you want to come across is enough to get drafts that sound like you from the first response instead of after three rounds of edits.

You will build a proper voice guide later in Brand Voice. This is where it goes once you have it.

The more relevant context Claude has up front, the less correcting you do at the end.

Section 7

Work in threads

Work in threads, one topic per thread. Inside each project, start a new thread for each topic. A thread about a sales page stays clean; a thread about hiring stays clean. Nothing competes for attention.

1Pick the door that fits the job, using the table in the lesson.
2Create one project for your business, and one for each client.
3Add what your business does, who it serves and how you want it to sound as project context.
4Work in threads, one topic per thread.
5Bring your own material in: upload the documents, exports and images the work depends on.

Section 9

Good habits

Check every fact, figure, and quote against a real source.
Review the finished work before using or sharing it.
Remove confidential information that is not needed.
Give every project a short description of your business and the tone you want.
Keep one topic per thread so context stays clean.

Do not include customer records, contracts, credentials, employee information, or confidential material without approval. A qualified person should review decisions involving people, money, health, or legal obligations.

In closing

Set it up once, use it every day

Projects, context, and clean threads are the whole foundation. Once those are in place, every conversation with Claude starts closer to a finished draft.

Checkpoint

You have done this when you have one project for your business, with a paragraph in it describing what you do and how you want to sound.

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