# Claude Cowork 101: How to automate your workday without touching code | JJ Englert (Tenex)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-i-ai-7304222/claude-cowork-101-how-to-automate-your-workday-without-touching-code-jj-englert-tenex
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-i-ai-7304222/claude-cowork-101-how-to-automate-your-workday-without-touching-code-jj-englert-tenex.md
Podcast: [How I AI](https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-i-ai-7304222)
Published: 2026-04-13T11:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pen-name/episodes/Claude-Cowork-101-How-to-automate-your-workday-without-touching-code--JJ-Englert-Tenex-e3hkad0
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/1035b1568/podcast/play/118155104/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-3-9%2F421750617-44100-2-473db93ecdba3.mp3
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Duration seconds: 3011

## Resource

JJ Englert leads community enablement at Tenex. In this episode, JJ provides a complete zero-to-one tutorial on Claude Cowork, Anthropic’s desktop tool that sits between simple chat and full terminal-based coding. What you’ll learn: How to create your first Claude Cowork project by connecting a folder on your computer and building context over time The “brain” file strategy: how to create a preferences document that Claude reads every time to understand who you are and how you work Why one-click connectors to Gmail, Slack, Notion, and Google Calendar unlock AI that actually does work instead of just suggesting it How to analyze your sent emails to build a writing skill that perfectly matches your tone and style The sub-advisory-board technique: spinning up three AI agents with different personas to review your work from multiple perspectives How to set permissions for each connector so Claude only drafts (never sends) or always asks before taking action The scheduled-task workflow that creates a morning debrief by reading your email, Slack, and calendar every day at 7:30 a.m. Why projects with shared memory beat individual chat threads for consistent, high-quality AI outputs — Brought to you by: Tines —Start building intelligent workflows today Cursor —The best way to code with AI — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to JJ Englert (02:48) What Cowork is and who it’s for (05:49) Getting started: Opening the Cowork tab in Claude Desktop (07:04) Understanding projects as folders on your computer (07:54) Creating your “brain” file, with working preferences and context (10:24) Demo: Building a daily operating system project from scratch (12:18) How to prompt Cowork when starting a new project (14:54) Understanding the project interface and shared memory (18:37)…

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