Claude Cowork 101 Workshop — The Trusted Voice
TTV Live Workshop · April 2025

Claude
Cowork 101

Stop doing the work that doesn’t need you. Your AI operations manager is ready.

Duration
~60 mins
Format
Hands-on
You’ll need
Laptop + paid Claude account
Pre-work
Download Claude Desktop
Scroll to begin
01
Part One
Intro
The problem

You are the bottleneck
in your own business.

You’re doing the thinking, the doing — and somehow also the admin. The work that doesn’t need your brain is still eating your week.

14+
Roles the average solopreneur plays every week
40%
Of your week on tasks Claude could handle
1
Task you’ll leave here having already delegated
Time savings

What it actually saves you

Estimated time on common tasks — with and without Cowork

Without Cowork
With Cowork
Organise files & folders
45 min
3 min
Compile a weekly report
60 min
8 min
Research a new topic
90 min
15 min
Prep for a client call
30 min
5 min
Draft a proposal section
40 min
7 min
Chase outstanding invoices
25 min
4 min
Today’s session

What we’re covering

Part 1 · 10 min
Intro
Why this tool is different
Part 2 · 20 min
Need to Know
The tools, roles & skills
Part 3 · 30 min
How To
Setup + live task
Part 4 · 5 min
Resources
Your toolkit
02
Part Two
Need to Know
The cast of characters

Four tools.
One system.

Think of running an online business. Here’s who does what.

01 · Claude Chat

Your on-call advisor

Ask anything, get smart answers. Great for one-off tasks. But every session you start from scratch — no memory, no system access.

“Draft me a proposal intro”
02 · Claude Code

Your IT co-founder

Builds the infrastructure — automations, integrations, systems. Lives in the backend. Brilliant, but developer territory.

“Build me a client portal”
03 · Claude Cowork ✦

Your ops manager with the keys

Executes while you sleep. You give it access to your tools and folders. It opens apps, navigates your browser, delivers finished work.

“Chase all outstanding invoices”
04 · Skills

Your SOPs baked in

Write your preferences once — your tone, your ICP, your workflows — and Claude follows them every session. No re-briefing. Ever.

“Always write in my voice, not corporate”
Worksheet 1Match the tool to your business
For each tool, write a real example from your own business
ToolWhat it doesMy example
Claude ChatOn-call advisor, one task at a time
Claude CodeIT builder, creates systems
CoworkOps manager with the keys
SkillsYour SOPs baked in
Skills

Write your SOP once.
Never re-brief again.

Global Instructions in Cowork are your standing brief. Claude reads them every session.

📋

Example Global Instructions

Settings → Cowork → Global Instructions. Paste something like this:

I run [business name], a [what you do] for [who you serve].
My tone is: warm, direct, never corporate.
My ideal client: [describe them].
Always review before sending anything externally.
My working folder: Claude Cowork on Desktop.
Worksheet 2

Which hats are you
wearing right now?

Click every role you touched this week. The ones you click are the ones Claude should be doing.

👈 Click to highlight

Client Work
1Delivering the service
2Managing projects & deadlines
3Writing proposals & reports
Sales & Marketing
4Creating content
5Chasing leads & following up
6Managing inbox & outreach
Admin & Ops
7Invoicing & quoting
8Scheduling & diary management
9Organising files & documents
Finance
10Tracking expenses & cash flow
11Reporting & reconciling
Team & Comms
12Writing briefs & instructions
13Taking meeting notes & actions
14Building presentations & newsletters
03
Part Three
How To
Group discussion → mapping activity

What do you wish you
could delegate?

First we discuss as a group. Then map it for your own business.

01
What task keeps showing up in your week like a bad penny?
02
If a new staff member started Monday — what’s the first thing you’d hand them?
03
Any tasks on a schedule? Monthly? Weekly? Every quarter?
Let’s do it together

Cowork setup
in 5 steps

Everyone follow along. Raise your hand if you get stuck.

1

Download Claude Desktop

Go to claude.ai/download — Mac or Windows. Latest version.

Pre-work if possible
2

Create your “AI Lab” folder

New folder on your Desktop called AI Lab. Drop in 5–10 random work files — old proposals, invoices, notes, anything messy. The messier the better.

Keep it focused, not your whole machine
3

Open the Cowork tab

In Claude Desktop, find the mode selector at the top. Click Cowork — sits alongside Chat.

4

Set your Global Instructions

Settings → Cowork → Global Instructions. Tell Claude who you are, who you serve, how you work. Once. Forever.

Most important step
5

Select your folder and go

Point Cowork at your AI Lab folder. Type what you want. Review the plan. Let it run.

You’re live 🎉
Hands on · 5 mins

Let’s play with Cowork

First task: file cleanup. Drop some messy files into your AI Lab folder and let Cowork do what it does. Two steps — audit first, then take action.

Step 1 · Audit (safe — nothing gets moved)
I’ve got some downloaded files in this folder. Can you audit what’s here, flag any duplicates or broken files, and give me a cleanup report before making any changes?

Point Cowork at your AI Lab folder (or your Downloads). Paste the prompt. Hit go. Read the report it hands back — that’s your first taste of delegation.

Step 2 · Review & take action

Cowork hands you a report. Now you decide what happens next — delete duplicates, move clutter into a cleanup folder, rename files. You approve each action before it runs.

👀

It asks before acting

Cowork suggests actions — delete, move, rename. You approve or deny each one. Nothing happens without your say-so.

📁

Move, don’t delete

Not sure? Tell it to move files to a “to delete” folder instead. Review later, delete when you’re confident.

Suggest improvements

Ask Cowork to rename messy files, suggest a folder structure, or flag anything it thinks you should keep.

Before you leave

Your one task
this week

Not five. Not a list. One real task you will hand to Claude by Friday.

“By Friday I will delegate…”
04
Part Four
Resources
Take these with you

Everything you need
to keep going

▶️

Workshop Replay

Rewatch the full session at your own pace. TTV members only.

Watch replay (login required)
📋

Workshop Worksheet

Cast of characters, roles list, and delegation mapping — print or fill digitally.

Open worksheet
🔗

101 Ways to Use Cowork

101 real tasks you can delegate starting today. No fluff.

thetrustedvoice.co/claude-cowork-101
🎓

The Trusted Voice

Cowork is one tool. TTV is the whole system — PACE, AI toolkit, community.

Join TTV membership
Reference

Glossary

01
Claude Cowork
Anthropic’s desktop AI tool that completes tasks for you — not advice, not a draft, the finished thing. Think of it as your ops manager with access to your files and laptop.
02
Claude Chat
The version everyone knows — like ChatGPT. Great for one-off questions but starts from scratch every session. Your on-call advisor.
03
Claude Code
Your IT co-founder. Builds infrastructure, automations, integrations and systems. Lives in the terminal. Developer territory.
04
Skills
Your SOPs baked in. Write your preferences, workflow and ICP once and Claude follows them every session. No re-briefing. If you do something more than three times — turn it into a skill.
05
Global Instructions
The standing brief you give Cowork before it does anything. Sits in Settings → Cowork. Tells it who you are, who you serve, how you work. Set once, applies every session.
06
Hats
The roles you wear in your business beyond your core service — sales, admin, invoicing, marketing, comms. Most solopreneurs wear 14 or more without realising it.
07
Token burn
How much compute Cowork uses to complete a task. High at setup while it builds your SOPs and workflows. Drops significantly once the foundation is established.
08
Sandbox folder
A dedicated folder — like “AI Lab” — you give Cowork access to. Keeps it contained so it’s not touching your whole machine while you’re getting started.
09
Scheduled tasks
Set a task once and Cowork runs it automatically on a cadence — weekly, monthly, quarterly. Good for invoicing, reports, analytics. Requires your computer to be awake.
10
Orchestrator
The top-level layer of your Cowork setup — like a GM or chief of staff that knows all your business folders and routes the right knowledge to the right task. Build the base first, add the orchestrator last.