Build your first
digital employee.

Make her office.

Files are papers. Folders are drawers. Your new employee needs a drawer of her own.

• Wherever your files already live, make a new folder. Call it something plain — "Assistant" is fine.
• Copy a handful of messy files into it: letters, bills, notes, that scan with the terrible name. Copy — never move. She works on copies until she's earned trust.

Add the "About me" folder.

Cold, AI gives everyone the same answer. With a little of you, it becomes yours. This step is what makes the difference.

• Inside your folder, make a subfolder called "About me".
• Find five documents that contain you — an old CV, something you wrote, a proposal, a long email you were proud of. Copy them in.
• Can't find five? Two is plenty to start.

Sit her at the desk.

Cowork is where Claude stops chatting and starts working on your actual files.

• Open the Claude app and sign in.
• Open Cowork.
• When it asks which folder it may work in, choose your Assistant folder. That permission window is good manners, not a trap — she can only touch what you allow.

If she lists your files back to you, you're in. That's the whole setup.

Give her the first task.

No special language to learn. You brief her like you'd brief a capable new assistant — three parts. Try it here first:

Paste it into Cowork, press enter, and watch. She'll make a plan, do the work, and ask when she's unsure — answer her like you'd answer a person.

Check her work like a boss.

This is the actual skill — and you've had it for years.

• Open two folders. Read her report. Does it hold up?
• Something wrong? Tell her to fix it or undo it. She can.
• Not sure between versions? Ask for three and pick. Attempts are free now.

Keep the "About me" habit.

Whenever she writes something and you think "yes, that's me" — have her save it:

She remembers, so you never explain yourself twice. Over the weeks, her answers stop sounding like the internet and start sounding like you.