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Out of the box, Claude is a good chat partner. Nothing more. No memory, no access to your browser, no connection to your programs. The interesting things, Claude remembering facts about you, reading your calendar or writing a file on your machine, are switches you flip once. After that it's a different tool.

Step 1: Create an account and get the desktop app

First create an account at claude.ai. Then download the desktop app right away, don't stay in the browser. The reason shows up in step 3: without the desktop app there's no access to your machine, and that access is what makes Claude actually useful.

Your first step: create the account, install the desktop app, log in.

Step 2: Turn on basic info and memory

Go to Settings → General and give Claude a bit of basic info about you. Your name, what you do, what matters to you. That's the context Claude reads along in every chat.

Then go to Settings → Capabilities and switch on the memory toggles. This gives the AI a basic memory: it remembers things about you and your projects across individual chats. Without that switch you start from scratch in every new conversation.

Your first step: enter your basic info, turn the memory toggles on.

Step 3: Grant browser and machine access

Under Extensions sit the two switches that turn the chat partner into a tool:

• Chrome extension. This lets Claude see and control your browser. It can read pages, fill forms, research, click. Without the extension Claude is blind to everything happening in your browser.
• Desktop Commander. This lets Claude write on your computer, meaning create and change files. It's the foundation for everything beyond pure conversation.

Your first step: install the Chrome extension, enable Desktop Commander.

Step 4: Connect your connectors

Under Customize you add connectors. A connector lets Claude drive another program, straight from the chat. In each one you fine-tune what Claude is actually allowed to do: read only, or write too. You can change this later at any time, so start narrow and open up as trust grows.

Five connectors run every day for me:

• Notion is my knowledge base and project management. Claude creates pages, maintains databases and reads the state of my projects without me copying a thing.
• Gmail reads and answers mail. I have it summarize threads and write drafts I only need to sign off on.
• Google Calendar plans my day: create events, find free slots, walk through the day.
• Google Drive pulls documents and brand assets. Strategy papers, briefings, content plans, whatever lives there.
• Canva builds graphics right in the chat: social posts, presentations, flyers, in the brand look.

Which other connectors exist for marketing and business, and what for, is in Claude Cowork Connectors. If you build with Claude, connectors like GitHub, Supabase and Vercel come into play. The five I use for that are in 5 MCP services.

Your first step: connect one connector you use daily, usually Gmail or Notion.

Step 5: Plugins for your field

Also under Customize you load plugins. A plugin is a collection of several skills, bundled for one field: marketing, product management, design, finance, legal. Claude activates the right skills automatically or on your command.

As a product and marketing person, I use three every day:

• Marketing for content and campaigns. /draft-content for posts and newsletters, /seo-audit for rankings, /email-sequence for mail sequences.
• Product Management for the product side. /write-spec for a PRD, /roadmap-update for the roadmap, /stakeholder-update for reporting.
• Brand Voice keeps everything in my voice. /enforce-voice checks every text against my brand guidelines before it goes out.

An example of a different plugin: you want to review a contract. You call the slash command for the legal plugin and start the contract-review skill. Claude works through the contract by that skill instead of improvising. The same principle holds for every plugin.

The full overview of the five core plugins with their skills and commands is in Claude Cowork + Plugins guide.

Your first step: load one plugin from your field and test a skill from it.

Step 6: Build your own skills

On top of the plugins, you can add individual skills. Some ship from Anthropic. It gets more interesting when you build your own.

• In Claude (Cowork): the skill creator builds your own skills. The command is /skill-creator. You describe to Claude what the skill should do, and the AI saves it. How that works step by step is in Claude skill creator.
• In Claude Code: it works differently. You load skills straight from the internet and store them on your machine.

How to build your own skill from scratch in 20 minutes is in Claude skill in 20 minutes.

Your first step: take a recurring task you do often and capture it as a skill with /skill-creator.

Common mistakes

• Staying in the browser. No desktop app means no Desktop Commander, no Desktop Commander means no access to your machine. Half the value is gone.
• Forgetting memory. Without the toggles from step 2 Claude remembers nothing, and you repeat the same context in every chat.
• Granting everything at once. Start connectors narrow, restrict to read, only then give write access. Rolling back is always possible.
• Hoarding plugins. Don't load every plugin, only the ones from your field. Otherwise you have twenty skills and use three.

Next steps

1. Account and desktop app, don't stay in the browser
2. Basic info and memory on
3. Chrome extension and Desktop Commander granted
4. One connector you need daily
5. One plugin from your field, test a skill
6. One skill of your own with /skill-creator