The 10X Claude Setup

Why most people stay stuck

Most people use Claude like a search bar. Type a short question, get a generic answer, decide AI is "fine." That's not a Claude problem. It's a setup problem.

Claude only knows what you give it. Give it nothing and it guesses. Give it your whole world (who you are, how you sound, what tools you use, what "good" looks like) and it stops guessing. These 5 lessons are how you give it that, in order.

• What you need Any Claude plan (Pro or higher for connectors)
• Best place to run the prompts Claude desktop app, Cowork, or Claude Code
• Time About 20 minutes per lesson
• Coding needed None

1. Context is key

Garbage in, garbage out. Ask Claude to "write me a LinkedIn post" with zero context and you get a post that sounds like everyone and no one. It doesn't know what you do, who you talk to, or how you sound.

The fix is a second brain: a small folder of plain text files that holds everything Claude needs to know about you. This is the same structure I run my whole business on. Claude reads it before it does anything, so every answer starts from your world instead of a blank page.

• CLAUDE.md
  The front door. Tells Claude which file to read for what.
• USER.md
  Who you are, what you do, your priorities, how you like answers.
• voice-profile.md
  How you write and talk, with real examples. This is what makes it sound like you.
• brand-guide.md
  What you stand for, what you offer, the topics you own.
• icp.md
  The people you serve, in their own words.
• MEMORY.md
  A running log of facts and decisions, dated. It's how Claude remembers across chats.

Build it in one sitting

1. Open Claude where it can make files. Cowork or Claude Code works best, because Claude can write the folder straight onto your computer. In the regular Claude app, it'll give you the files to download instead.
2. Paste Prompt 1 and answer the interview. Talk like you'd talk to a new hire. The more specific you are, the better every future answer gets.
3. Plug the folder in. In Claude Code or Cowork, keep working inside the my-ai-os folder and Claude reads CLAUDE.md on its own. In the Claude app, create a Project and upload the files to its knowledge.

You're going to build my personal AI operating system: a small folder of plain text files that tells any AI exactly who I am, what I do, and how I sound, so I never have to explain the basics again.

HOW TO INTERVIEW ME
- Ask me ONE question at a time. Wait for my answer before asking the next one.
- Go in this order: (1) who I am and what I do, (2) who I do it for, (3) what I'm trying to get done in the next 90 days, (4) how I like answers (length, format, tone), (5) how I write and talk, (6) the tools I use every day, (7) the tasks I repeat every week.
- If an answer is vague, push back with a follow-up. "I do marketing" is not an answer. "I run Meta ads for 4 dental offices and send them a report every Monday" is.
- When we get to how I write, ask me to paste 2 or 3 real things I've written (an email, a post, a text). Study them.
- If I say "skip", move on. If I say "done", stop and build with what you have.
- Tell me which section we're on and roughly how many questions are left.

WHAT TO BUILD WHEN WE'RE DONE
Create a folder called "my-ai-os" with these files:

1. CLAUDE.md: the front door. 10 to 20 lines. Tells any AI to read USER.md first, then whichever other files fit the task. Lists every file and what it's for.
2. USER.md: who I am, what I do, who I do it for, my current priorities, and how I like answers.
3. voice-profile.md: how I write and talk. My tone in 3 words, sentence length, words and phrases I actually use, words I'd never use, and 2 or 3 short real examples pulled from what I pasted.
4. brand-guide.md: what I (or my business) stand for, what I offer, what makes it different, and the topics I talk about. If I don't have a business, make this about my job and role instead.
5. icp.md: the people I serve. Who they are, what they want, what keeps them stuck, and the words they use to describe their problem.
6. MEMORY.md: starts with today's date and a short list of the key facts and decisions from this interview. From now on, new facts and decisions get added here with the date.

RULES
- Write everything in short, plain bullet points so any AI can read it fast.
- Use my own words wherever you can. Never invent a fact I didn't give you. If something is missing, write "TBD" so I can fill it in later.
- When it's built, show me the folder, then tell me the 3 tasks from my weekly list you could take off my plate first, and the exact sentence I'd type to hand each one over.

FROM NOW ON
Whenever I tell you something new about my work, my goals, my audience, or how I like things done, update the right file and tell me in one line what you changed.

Start with your first question.

2. Talk, don't type: use a voice-to-text tool

The average person talks around 150 words a minute and types around 40. That's roughly 4x faster. Since context is everything (lesson 1), talking means you hand Claude 4x the context in the same amount of time. Better inputs, faster.

I use Wispr Flow. It works in every app on your computer, not just Claude, and it cleans up your filler words as you go.

1. Install Wispr Flow from wisprflow.ai and give it mic access.
2. Click into Claude's chat box, hold the hotkey, and talk. Let go and the text lands in the box. (You can change the hotkey in Wispr's settings.)
3. Ramble on purpose. Say what you want, why you want it, who it's for, what you tried, and what you don't want. The stuff you'd skip when typing is exactly what makes the answer good.
4. Tell Claude how to handle it. Paste Prompt 2 into your project instructions (or the top of your CLAUDE.md) so Claude knows your messages are dictated.

I talk to you with voice-to-text most of the time. That means my messages will be long, messy, and full of filler words, repeats, and the occasional wrong word from the transcription.

When I send you one of those:
1. Pull out what I actually mean. Ignore "um", "like", restarts and repeats. If a word looks like a transcription mistake, use the word that makes sense.
2. Treat everything I said as context, even the tangents. The extra detail is the point.
3. If my ask is still unclear after that, ask me up to 3 short questions before you start. Otherwise, just do the work.
4. Never repeat my rambling back to me. Start with the answer.

3. Connect every tool you use

Claude in a chat window can only talk. Claude connected to your tools can actually do the work: read your inbox, check your calendar, pull from Notion, look at Stripe.

You can connect apps one by one inside Claude. But if you really want to level up, connect everything to Composio instead, and then connect only Composio to Claude. One connector, every app. When you add a new tool, you add it in Composio and Claude gets it automatically. Way easier to manage.

1. Make a free Composio account at composio.dev.
2. Connect the apps you use every day. Start with the big ones: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Notion, Slack. Each one is a sign-in and an "Allow."
3. Add Composio to Claude. In Claude, go to Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, name it Composio, and paste the URL below. Sign in when it asks.
4. Turn it on in a chat. Click the tools button in the chat box and make sure Composio is switched on. Then run Prompt 3 to test it.

https://connect.composio.dev/mcp

Use my Composio connector for this.

1. Tell me which of my apps are connected right now.
2. Then do a quick test run across them:
   - Find the 3 most recent emails in my inbox that need a reply and summarize each in one line.
   - List everything on my calendar for tomorrow.
   - Check one more connected app of your choice and tell me one useful thing you found.
3. Don't send, delete, or change anything. Read only. At the end, tell me 3 things you could do for me every week now that you can see all of these apps at once.

4. When you don't know how, ask

This is the one almost everyone overlooks. AI models are smart enough now that you don't need to know how to automate something. You just need to know what you want automated.

So when you hit "I'd love to automate this but I have no idea how," don't Google it. Ask Claude how. Then ask Claude to build it. Two prompts.

1. Describe the task in plain words in Prompt 4. How you do it today, how often, how long it takes.
2. Answer its questions and pick an option. It'll lay out a few ways to do it, from easiest to most powerful.
3. Send Prompt 5. Claude builds it, walks you through the parts only you can do (like signing in), and runs it once so you see it work.

I want to automate something but I don't know how. Here's the task:

[DESCRIBE THE TASK IN PLAIN WORDS. Example: "Every Monday I copy last week's numbers from my Stripe dashboard and Google Analytics into a Google Sheet, then write a 5-line summary and email it to my business partner. It takes me about an hour."]

Before you build anything:
1. Ask me any questions you need about how I do it today (one at a time).
2. Then give me 2 or 3 ways to automate it, from easiest to most powerful. For each one, tell me: what tools it uses, what I'd need to connect or sign up for, roughly how long setup takes, and what could break.
3. Recommend one and tell me why.

Assume I'm not technical. Plain words, no jargon.

Great, let's go with your recommendation. Build it for me.

- Walk me through anything I have to do myself (signing in, connecting an app, pasting a key) one step at a time, and wait for me to say "done" before the next step.
- Do everything else yourself.
- When it's built, run it once for real and show me the result.
- Then tell me in 3 lines: what it does, when it runs, and how I turn it off.

5. Automate what you're already good at

Here's the trap. People try to get AI to do things they've never done themselves. How can you teach AI to run paid ads if you've never run paid ads? You can't. You don't know what good looks like, so you can't tell when it's wrong.

Start with what you're already good at. If you're a content strategist, you already know what a great idea and a great hook look like. So have AI help with content ideas, or find outliers in your niche. You can grade every answer in seconds, and you'll spot the moment it drifts.

Help me find the first things I should automate with AI.

The rule: only automate tasks I'm already good at, because I know what a great result looks like and can tell when you get it wrong.

1. Read my USER.md and MEMORY.md if you can see them. Then interview me, one question at a time, about the tasks I do every week.
2. For each task, find out: how often I do it, how long it takes, and whether I'd call myself good at it (I know what "great" looks like).
3. Throw out anything I'm NOT good at. Tell me which ones you threw out and why.
4. Rank what's left by hours saved per month, and show it as a short table: task, hours a month, how good I am at it, how hard it'd be to automate.
5. Pick the top one and ask me for 2 or 3 examples of me doing it well, so you can copy what "great" looks like. Then do the task once and let me grade it.

The content strategist example

Two prompts I'd hand any creator or marketer on day one. Both work best once your second brain from lesson 1 is set up.

You're my content strategist's assistant. Read my USER.md, voice-profile.md, and icp.md first.

Give me 15 short-form video ideas for this week.
- Every idea must solve a real problem the people in icp.md have, in the words they'd use.
- Mix it up: 5 tutorials (how I do something step by step), 5 news or "what just changed" ideas, 5 opinions or myths I can push back on.
- For each one: a working title, the first line I'd say on camera (the hook), and one sentence on why it would work for my audience.
- Nothing generic. If an idea could come from any creator in my niche, cut it and replace it.

Then ask me which 3 I like, and outline those 3 in my voice.

Find the outliers in my niche.

Here are recent posts from creators in my space, with their view counts:
[PASTE A LIST: creator, post title or first line, views. 30 to 100 posts is plenty. You can copy these straight off their profiles, or export them with a scraping tool.]

1. For each creator, work out their typical (median) views.
2. Flag every post that did at least 3x that creator's median. Those are the outliers.
3. For each outlier, tell me: the topic, the hook (first line), the format (tutorial, list, news, story, opinion), and your best guess at why it popped.
4. Look for patterns across all the outliers. What topics, hooks, and formats keep showing up?
5. Give me 5 video ideas that borrow the PATTERN behind the outliers, rewritten for my audience and my voice. Never copy a post.

The 2-week plan

1. Days 1-2: Build your second brain. Run Prompt 1. Test the before and after.
2. Day 3: Install Wispr Flow. Add Prompt 2 to your instructions. Talk to Claude from now on.
3. Days 4-5: Connect your tools. Composio, your 5 daily apps, then Prompt 3.
4. Days 6-10: Automate one thing you're good at. Run Prompt 6, then use Prompts 4 and 5 to build the winner.
5. Days 11-14: Do it again. Pick the next task on your list. Every week, add what you learned to MEMORY.md.

That's 15 months of trial and error, compressed. Go build.