Get ready for Claude: all six tools.

1. 1

   Tool 1: Cowork

   • Download Claude at claude.com/download and open the Cowork tab.
   • Select a folder from your computer.
   • Build your brain file: create about-me.md with who you are, what you do and how you like to work.
   • Start every chat with: Read the files first. Then ask me questions before doing anything.

2. 2

   Tool 2: Model

   • Pick the most capable model in the model picker. New ones arrive fast, and Sandy covers each release in her Forbes column.
   • Turn on extended thinking. Most people skip this and wonder why Claude feels generic.
   • Go to Settings › Connectors and link Slack, Google Drive and Notion.
   • Claude now reads your actual workspace.

3. 3

   Tool 3: Excel

   • Open Excel and go to Insert › Get Add-ins. Search for “Claude by Anthropic” and install it.
   • Open any spreadsheet and ask: Give me a summary of each tab.
   • Claude lives inside the spreadsheet. It knows what D14 actually contains.

4. 4

   Tool 4: Plugins

   • Go to claude.com/plugins and pick the one for your job: marketing, sales, legal, finance or data.
   • Click install, then type / in your next chat.
   • The signal: legal software companies lost $285B in market cap when these dropped.

5. 5

   Tool 5: Artifacts

   • Nothing to install.
   • Ask Claude to build something: Create an interactive HTML calculator for [thing].
   • You get a working tool inside the chat. Not text, not a suggestion, but a thing you click and use.

6. 6

   Tool 6: Projects

   • Go to claude.ai, click Projects and create one.
   • Upload your files and add instructions.
   • Every chat inside the project remembers your context.
   • Sandy’s honest take: Cowork replaced this for her, but for teams it still works.

Set up all six. It takes a day. Then you’ll understand why everyone switched.