How to Use Claude Better Than 99% of People
Claude is not one app but a stack of five tools — chat, projects, co-work, code, and a browser extension. Here is how to run them as a team, plus the PRIME framework for directing any of them.
Watch on YouTubeThe five-minute version
- Claude is a stack, not an app — five tools mapped to five activities — think, remember, execute, build, browse.
- Chat is your thinking partner — give rich context, ground answers in verified research, and learn the skill while you use it.
- Projects hold memory across sessions — customize at the project level, not the account level, so vacation planning and retirement planning stay separate.
- Co-work runs multi-step tasks against local files and reaches other tools through MCP connectors — sandbox it to one folder.
- PRIME — Purpose, Research, Interview, Mechanics, Examples — is the framework for directing Claude like a smart hire.
01 · The stack
Claude is a team, not an app
Hand Claude to two people and one builds a better email while the other helps build a hundred-million-dollar company. Same tool, different users. The gap between people who use AI and people who wield it is the whole point. The first move is to stop thinking of Claude as a single chatbot: it is a stack of tools mapped to five activities — think, remember, execute, build, and browse.
Think
Claude chat — work through a messy problem.
Remember
Projects — memory that persists across sessions.
Execute
Co-work — multi-step tasks on your local files.
Build
Claude Code — make a working tool from plain English.
Browse
Claude Chrome — Claude reads and acts inside your browser.
02 · Think
Chat is a thinking partner, not a ghostwriter
Most of us type "write me a LinkedIn post about leadership" and get a polished paragraph that says nothing. The fix is to stop outsourcing the thinking. Bring a fuzzy idea or rough draft and make Claude push back: "You are a business school professor… Your job is to push back on what's weak and sharpen what's real." The earlier AIM pattern — Actor, Input, Mission — still applies here.
- Give it rich contextConnect Google Drive, email, calendar, Notion; attach files so it reads from your world, not the internet's average.
- Ground it in researchHave Claude do deep research, then ask one more time — "Is this verified?"
- Learn while you flyStuck on IRR or free cash flow? Open another tab and ask. Learn and do, do and learn.
03 · Remember
Projects turn a chat into a relationship
Real work doesn't finish in one session. A project is where you drop your files, instructions, tone, and ongoing work, so you're not starting from zero each time. For a job search that means your resume, LinkedIn profile, target job descriptions, and writing samples — plus a brief written for someone you know well: yourself.
04 · Execute
Co-work does the task, then writes the file
Chat is where work begins; Co-work is where it gets done. It's a desktop app (Mac or Windows, paid plans) for when you have assets on your hard drive, the job takes multiple steps, and you need the output as a local file. Hand it transcripts, spreadsheets, and meeting notes and tell it to find the top three reasons customers are churning and build a clean deck. Through MCP — the Model Context Protocol — Co-work can also reach other tools, like the creative platform Higgsfield, to generate the assets a solo founder once needed an agency for.
05 · Build
If you can type in English, you can build
"Code" is the word that makes everyone nervous, and that nervousness is one of the biggest missed opportunities in AI. You don't need a computer science background — you need to be clear about the problem and have the right data. Ask Claude Code for "a dashboard where I can drop in my sales pipeline and meeting notes and instantly see which deals are at risk," and it builds it.
06 · Browse
Claude rides along inside the browser
Most work now happens in a browser — Drive, email, scheduling, forms, purchases, research. Claude Chrome is an extension that lets Claude see the page you're on and act inside your workflow in real time. On a job listing it can help tailor your outreach; on a forty-page report it can pull the three insights that matter.
Now Claude is right there with you for all of it.— theMITmonk
07 · PRIME
How to direct Claude like a smart hire
Even with the full team, Claude is only as good as the input. Super users direct it the way they'd direct a sharp person they just hired — and the framework for that is PRIME.
- PurposeGive it a precise goal — what is this really for, and what's the outcome?
- ResearchHand it the raw material — notes, files, examples, constraints — and have it verify so it stops guessing.
- InterviewTell it "interview me before you respond"; its multiple-choice questions sharpen its scope and your thinking.
- MechanicsSpecify the form — bullets or paragraph, table or doc, concise or detailed.
- ExamplesShow what good looks like. Examples are one of the fastest routes to quality.
08 · The edge
The real edge is the human using it
Everyone watching feels like someone else is getting ahead faster — that's the default condition of ambition. The question isn't whether you're outgunned; it's how you outshine when you are. For twenty dollars a month you can hire something already sharper than most MBAs and PhDs. What it can't hand you is the curiosity, tenacity, and patience to push through the friction.
As one of my mentors used to say, you were the one you've been waiting for.— theMITmonk