Your workbook — everything from today's class, in one page. Copy the prompts straight from here. This page stays live after class.
How today works
You won't install or connect anything. Everything you do happens in a chat box. By the end of class you'll have built a Project — a workspace in Claude that knows your job and does one of your weekly tasks the way you want it done.
The idea behind everything today
Give Claude context once, instead of every time.
Three rules you already know: be specific, give context, tell it what to deliver. The professional move on top of them: anything you find yourself saying every time — who you are, how you like things done, what good looks like — stops being a prompt and becomes part of the platform. Say it once, and it stays said.
01 / HOLY AUTOMATION
The four prompts
Use these in order during class. Type into the gold blanks — the copy button takes your version, filled in.
1
Describe your workflow
Early in class
Pick a real task — not the impressive-sounding project, not the thing you might do someday. The boring weekly thing you did last week and will do again next week: the follow-ups, the status update nobody reads, the quote you rebuild from scratch every time. Those are the ones this pays off on.
Paste this into a new chat
I want your help thinking through a task I do every week so I can eventually hand it to you properly. The task is: . Ask me whatever you need to understand it, then tell me what a good brief for this task would need to include.
Keep this chat open
Claude will ask you questions — answer them. What comes out of this conversation is most of your Project instructions later.
2
Write your Project instructions
During the build lab
Fill this in with your own workflow, paste it into a chat, then paste the tightened result into your Project's custom instructions.
Paste this
Help me turn this into clean instructions for a Claude Project. Here is my draft: I handle . When I bring you , always . The output should be . If is unclear, ask me instead of guessing. Tighten this up and keep it short — I want standing instructions, not an essay.
Stuck? Go back to your first chat
Ask it: “Based on what I told you about this task, write the standing instructions for a Project that handles it.”
The move you'll use more than any other
You never have to write Project instructions cold.
Open a normal chat, describe the job, let Claude ask you questions, and have it draft the instructions — then paste those in. You're using a chat to build the thing that does the work. That applies to every Project you ever make, not just today's.
3
Make it better
After your Project's first real run
Once your Project has done the real task once, ask it this — then add what it says. That's the whole loop: build it, run it, improve it.
Paste this inside your Project
You just did this job for me. What is one thing I could add to your instructions that would make you better at it next time?
4
Don't accept the first draft
Any time
The first answer is the beginning of the work, not the end. Push, in this order.
One at a time
Too generic — make it specific to my situation.
What did you leave out?
Now give me the version for someone seeing this cold.
02 / HOLY AUTOMATION
How to build a Project
In the left sidebar, click Projects, then New Project.
Give it a name — the workflow it handles. “Proposal Assistant,” “Client Onboarding.” You can change it later.
Open the custom instructions and paste in what you wrote with Prompt 2. These are the standing instructions Claude reads every time.
Add knowledge if you have it — the right side of the project page, the plus button. Templates, price lists, examples of your best work.
Start a chat inside the Project and give it the real task. No preamble needed — it already knows the brief.
One Project per client, function, or recurring workflow
A Project is a room with a door: everything you put in stays in, and it's all still there next time.
03 / HOLY AUTOMATION
The demo Project from class
Meeting-to-Action Assistant — the instructions built live in class. Steal them, adapt them, or use them as a shape for your own.
Custom instructions
My team runs several meetings a week and I own the follow-ups. When I paste raw meeting notes, produce three things every time: a five-line summary, the action items with owners and deadlines pulled from the notes, and a drafted follow-up email to attendees — warm, direct, under 150 words. If an owner or a deadline is unclear, ask me one question instead of guessing. Keep everything clean enough to paste straight into email.
Practice notes for testing it
Deliberately messy, all fictional. Paste these into a Project built on the instructions above and watch what it does.
Sample meeting notes
Weds sync — Riva, Jordan, Sam, Malik (late), Dana out
budget: Riva says vendor quote came in high, maybe 15%?? needs to recheck against Q3 nums — by fri?
Jordan walked thru the launch page draft. feedback: hero too busy, CTA below fold. Sam to send copy edits. no date set
Malik — warehouse thing again. shelving order stuck w/ supplier, 3rd week. escalate?? Riva said she knows someone at the co
new hire onboarding — Dana owns but she's out, push to next week
Sam raised the returns process complaint from the big acct — everyone agreed it's a problem, nobody assigned
next sync same time next weds
04 / HOLY AUTOMATION
The platform
Feature
What it is
Where / when
Chats
One conversation, one task.
New chat button at the top of the sidebar. Pin the ones you return to daily.
Projects
Standing instructions + knowledge + their own chats, walled off from each other.
Left sidebar. For any recurring workflow. The core professional unit.
Artifacts
Documents, pages, and small tools built beside the chat — changed by asking, not retyping.
No button; just ask. Everything you build is kept in the Artifacts section in the main menu.
Memory
Claude carries what it learns about you across conversations.
Your initials, bottom left Settings Memory.
Privacy controls
Whether your conversations help train the model.
Same Settings menu. The switch is yours — worth knowing where it lives.
Skills & plugins
Packaged know-how Claude pulls in when a job calls for it. Plugins are bundles of skills.
When the same kind of deliverable keeps coming back.
Tasks
Work Claude runs on a schedule without you.
For the Monday brief you assemble by hand every Monday.
Connectors
Claude reaching into Gmail, Drive, and Calendar — asking permission each time.
Settings Connectors. Set this up on your own time, not in a hurry.
Design
Describe a page, deck, or prototype; refine a live version by asking.
Paid plans.
Cowork
Claude working in your actual files, carrying out whole jobs.
Paid plans, desktop app.
Claude Code
Building software, automations, and agents yourself.
Paid plans.
05 / HOLY AUTOMATION
Five things to try this week
Open your Project tomorrow and run the real workflow through it. The first week decides whether this sticks.
Paste a messy email thread and ask: summarize where this stands and draft my reply.
Upload a spreadsheet and ask: what should I be paying attention to here?
Ask for a document in an artifact, then improve it by asking instead of retyping.
Turn memory on and tell Claude about your work — once.
A few professional habits
Verify anything that matters. Confident and wrong is still wrong — check numbers, names, and claims before they go out with your name on them.
Think before you paste. Treat client and sensitive information with the same judgment you'd use with any outside service.
When the output disappoints, improve the brief. More context, a clear example, a sharper definition of done. Nine times out of ten the problem is the brief, not the tool.
Keep going
Claude Academy — Anthropic's free learning platform. Courses and case studies at every level, from beginner to building agents. Sections run a couple of hours each.
The AI Learning Institute lineup continues — check the schedule for what's next.
Questions after today: Hunter Culberson, Holy Automation — Charleston, SC.
