
Claude Cowork 101: How to automate your workday without touching code | JJ Englert (Tenex)
From How I AI by Claire Vo
April 13, 2026 · 50 min
About this episode
JJ Englert provides a tutorial on using Claude Cowork to automate work tasks without coding.
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 —…
People in this episode
Host: Claire Vo
Guest: JJ Englert
Topics covered
- automation
- AI tools
- productivity
- Claude Cowork
- workday optimization
- community enablement
Keywords
- Claude Cowork
- automation
- AI
- productivity
- Gmail
- Slack
- Notion
- Google Calendar
- work optimization
Sponsors
Tines, Cursor
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Tenex, Anthropic, Gmail, Slack, Notion, Google Calendar
Products: Claude Cowork
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