14:05Austin Marchese · Tutorial
The ONLY 6 Skills You Need to 10x Your Claude Projects
A 14-minute system blueprint: three skills to train your AI, two to pressure-test it, one to ship.
June 2ndThe argument in one line.
Most of what makes Claude actually change your work isn't a hidden feature, it's doing seven specific things in a fixed order, because building automations or custom tools before the foundation is set wastes months.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You already use Claude Code or the Claude desktop app but feel like you're just chatting instead of running a real system.
- You're tempted to automate everything or build a custom AI tool for every problem you hit, and want a filter before sinking a weekend into it.
- You want a repeatable way to turn things you do by hand into reusable Claude Skills instead of retyping the same prompt every time.
SKIP IF…
- You've never opened Claude and want a first-time-user walkthrough, not an 80/20 workflow overhaul.
- You're only interested in prompt-writing tips, not workspace structure, connectors, or automation.
The full version, fast.
This breaks Claude usage into seven pieces learned in order: build a Claude Code workspace with a CLAUDE.md file and an LLM knowledge base, pair Obsidian and Artifacts for real collaboration, connect email, calendar, Slack, and meeting notes through tightly-scoped connectors, turn repeated tasks into Skills enhanced with AskUserQuestion, arguments, and subagents, keep routines skill-driven with explicit recaps and fail-fast pre-checks, run a five-question filter before building anything new, and finish by keeping every project congruent instead of chasing a new tool for every itch.
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00:00 – 00:42
01 · Cold open
States the premise: skip 80% of what he originally learned, focus on the 20% that changed his life, across seven ordered pieces.
00:42 – 03:29
02 · Piece 1: Set Up Your Workspace
Skip Claude Projects and Claude co-work. Use Claude Code (the desktop app), run /init to generate CLAUDE.md, create an about-this-project file, and build an LLM knowledge base with /raw and /wiki folders.
03:29 – 05:48
03 · Piece 2: Have Claude Make Your Life Easier
Pair Obsidian (a free file viewer) with the same folder Claude edits so a human can hand-edit anything Claude wrote, and use Artifacts both for single-use feedback pages and as shareable micro-tools.
05:48 – 07:38
04 · Sponsor: Anthropic (Claude Code + Opus 5)
Sponsored segment covering three recent Claude Code upgrades: Routines, Plan Mode, and the desktop app's parallel agents and live preview.
07:38 – 09:44
05 · Piece 3: Connect Claude To The External World
Set up the four baseline connectors (email, calendar, a messaging tool, meeting recordings), tune permissions to a 'goldilocks zone,' switch tool access to 'load when needed,' and fall back to MCP when no first-party connector exists.
09:44 – 13:45
06 · Piece 4: Teach Claude New Skills
How to actually build a skill (do the task by hand first, then ask Claude to turn the conversation into a skill), the three enhancement features (AskUserQuestion, arguments, subagents), and two utility skills that maintain the system itself.
13:45 – 17:00
07 · Piece 5: Minimum Viable Automation
Build Routines only from skills already built, run them locally by default, end every automation with an explicit recap, and add a pre-check that fails fast instead of breaking twenty minutes in. Includes the subscribe/giveaway ask.
17:00 – 19:40
08 · Piece 6: Build New Things, In The Right Order
The 'AI hammer problem' and a checklist to run before building anything: what would I do without AI, is it a skill issue, does the tool already exist, can I enhance an existing tool, only then consider an MVP.
19:40 – 21:11
09 · Piece 7: Make Everything Congruent
Closes on a Warren Buffett compound-interest quote: the real risk after learning all this is chasing every new opportunity instead of staying in one direction long enough for the work to compound.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A CLAUDE.md file plus an LLM knowledge base built from /raw and /wiki folders is the foundation every other Claude workflow gets built on top of.
- An LLM knowledge base needs two folders: /raw holds the original source material untouched, /wiki holds files that tell the AI where to look, the same job a table of contents does in a book.
- Obsidian isn't a note app here, it's a shared window onto the same files Claude is editing, so a human can hand-edit anything Claude just wrote.
- A Claude Artifact can replace a whole micro-app: one restaurant owner runs his entire cocktail menu for bartenders as a link, no login and no custom software required.
- Connectors should be set to 'load when needed' instead of always-on, because loading every connector on every message burns tokens on permission checks nobody asked for.
- A Claude Skill should never be written from a blank request. Do the task by hand first, then ask Claude to turn that specific conversation into a skill.
- Three features separate a rough skill from a polished one: AskUserQuestion for clean multiple-choice prompts, arguments that change behavior per call, and subagents that run lookups in parallel instead of one after another.
- The rule for what becomes a skill is simple: if a task gets repeated, it becomes a skill. That constraint stops you from building skills you don't actually need.
- An automation is only as good as its explicit recap. 'Analyzed 41 of 41 emails, drafted 2 responses' tells you what happened; 'email analysis complete' tells you nothing.
- Every automation should pre-check its own connections before doing any work, so a broken integration fails in the first second instead of twenty minutes into a run.
- Before building a new AI tool, ask whether the problem would exist without AI at all, whether it's really a skill issue with a tool you already have, and whether the tool already exists.
- A small tool that improves software you already use beats replacing that software outright. In a team setting, an add-on is far more likely to actually get adopted than a full swap.
- Most wasted effort with AI comes from chasing every new possibility instead of staying congruent, building the same direction over and over so the work compounds instead of restarting each time.
Seven Ordered Pieces, Then Stay Congruent
THE 80/20 ORDER
The real unlock isn't a single Claude feature, it's building a workspace, skills, and automations in a strict order, then staying on one direction long enough for the work to compound.
02Piece 1: Set Up Your Workspace
- Run /init inside a Claude Code project folder to generate a CLAUDE.md file, the context Claude reads at the start of every session in that project.
- Build an LLM knowledge base with a /raw folder for original source material and a /wiki folder that acts like a table of contents, so Claude knows where to look instead of reading everything.
- Create an about-this-project file by having Claude interview you about your role, business, and audience, then reference it from CLAUDE.md so every session starts with real context.
03Piece 2: Have Claude Make Your Life Easier
- Open the same folder Claude is editing in Obsidian so edits Claude makes and edits a human makes land in the same files, no export or copy-paste required.
- Use Artifacts to turn a piece of work, like an email draft, into a shareable page a teammate can edit inline and hand back changes in a form that pastes straight into Claude.
- Artifacts can replace small internal tools entirely. A shareable link with no login beats building and hosting a real app for a narrow, low-stakes use case.
05Piece 3: Connect Claude To The External World
- Connect email, calendar, a messaging tool, and a meeting-recording tool as the four baseline connectors, since restricting Claude to local files and the model alone limits what it can actually do.
- Set connector tool access to 'load when needed' instead of always-on, so permission checks and token spend only happen on the calls that actually use that connector.
- When a tool has no first-party Claude connector, ask Claude to check whether it has an MCP integration you can wire up manually instead of waiting for an official one.
06Piece 4: Teach Claude New Skills
- Build a skill by doing the task by hand with Claude first until the output is right, then say 'based on this conversation, build me a skill' rather than asking for a skill cold.
- Only turn a task into a skill once you're already repeating it. That constraint keeps the skill library scoped to what's actually used instead of padded with hypothetical automations.
- Enhance skills with AskUserQuestion for clean multiple-choice prompts, arguments for anything that changes how a call behaves, and subagents to run independent lookups in parallel.
- Build a couple of utility skills that maintain the system itself: one that ingests any new file or link into the raw/wiki folders, and one that audits and improves existing skills and context.
07Piece 5: Minimum Viable Automation
- Set up automations as Routines that call skills you've already built, not paragraphs of fresh instructions. If a routine's instructions run longer than a sentence or two, the underlying skill isn't built yet.
- Run routines locally by default, not in the cloud, since local execution removes most of the variables that make cloud automation runs unpredictable.
- End every automation with an explicit recap, not a vague one. 'Analyzed 41 of 41 emails, drafted 2 responses' is verifiable; 'email analysis complete' tells you nothing actually happened.
- Add a pre-check to every automation that verifies each connection it needs before doing any work, so a broken integration fails immediately instead of twenty minutes into a run.
08Piece 6: Build New Things, In The Right Order
- Before building any AI tool, ask what you'd do if AI didn't exist at all, since that separates a genuine AI problem from an operational one you've been ignoring.
- Ask whether it's actually a skill issue: many 'I need a new tool' moments are really 'I haven't learned the tool I already have' moments.
- Check whether the tool already exists before building a version of it. Most software categories are mature, and rebuilding a worse version of an existing product rarely beats the original.
- Look for a small tool that enhances something you already use before replacing that tool outright. A narrow add-on is far more likely to get adopted on a team than a full switch.
09Piece 7: Make Everything Congruent
- Treat every new capability as optional, not mandatory. AI makes it possible to learn or build almost anything, and that surplus of options is itself the distraction.
- Staying in one direction long enough for work to compound beats starting a new project every time a new tool or idea shows up.
Terms worth knowing.
- Claude Code
- Anthropic's coding-and-automation mode inside the Claude desktop app that can read, write, and run files directly on a user's computer, not just chat in a browser.
- Connector
- A permissioned integration that lets Claude read from or act on an outside service, such as email, a calendar, Slack, or a meeting-recording tool.
- MCP (Model Context Protocol)
- The open protocol that lets an AI model call external tools and data sources in a standardized way, used to wire up services that don't have a built-in Claude connector yet.
- Claude Skill
- A reusable, saved prompt that runs the same multi-step task the same way every time it's called, instead of retyping instructions from scratch.
- Claude Routine
- A scheduled automation that runs a set instruction on a fixed cadence, either locally on a user's machine or in the cloud.
- Plan Mode
- A Claude Code mode that drafts a step-by-step approach to a task before writing any code or taking any action, so a human can review and edit the plan first.
- LLM knowledge base
- A structured set of folders and reference files that give an AI persistent context about a person, business, or project across sessions instead of starting from zero each time.
- Artifact
- A shareable mini web page Claude generates to visualize or interact with something, viewable by anyone with the link, no login or hosting required.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
00:30
“I'd skip about 80% of the stuff that doesn't make a difference and focus on the 20% that actually changed my life.”
10:40
“The best skills are lazy ways to do repeated work so you don't have to retype everything.”
16:55
“If you have a 100 person team working for you, I hope you're making 10 million dollars plus a year, which I don't think you are.”
17:40
“Once you learn about AI and you see how powerful it is, everything starts looking like a nail and AI is the hammer.”
20:20
“My life has been a product of compound interest, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing brilliant.”
Word for word.
Read-along
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metaphoranalogystory
If I had to start learning Claude from scratch today, this video covers exactly how I'd do it. Over the past two and a half years, I've used Claude every day, whether as a lead engineer at JP Morgan, the COO of a $25 million startup, or scaling my current business. But if I had to start over tomorrow, I would not do it the way I originally did it.
Instead, I'd skip about 80 % of the stuff that doesn't make a difference and focus on the 20 % that actually changed my life. So in this video, I'll go through the seven pieces of the Claude puzzle I'd learn in the exact order, which is the exact process I've used to help hundreds of founders and their employees quickly and effectively become experts with Claude.
And the last piece of the puzzle is the one piece of advice that changed my life. And if you pay attention, it will change yours. So the first piece of the puzzle is set up your workspace.
You're on the channel to become an expert. So I'm not going to teach you things that are not best practice. And what this means is we're intentionally skipping a couple of key tools that you've seen or heard about because it's wasted effort because we're not going to use that in the long run.
So what are the tools we're skipping? We're skipping Claude projects and Claude co -work.
The reality is these are good tools, but we're going to skip them because what we end up using is more powerful and will create a stronger foundation to build on. This foundation will make it so that we don't waste time in the long run. So what do we use instead?
We're going to use Claude code through the Claude desktop app, which is optimal for both technical and non -technical tasks. And my biggest problem with this tool is honestly the name because people instantly get intimidated. So if you are intimidated by the name Claude code, just rename it to Claude expert mode in your brain.
That's it. Of course you want to use Claude expert. Just think of it like that.
There's no reason to be intimidated. To set this up, it has nothing to do with anything technical. Just download the Cloud desktop app, hit code, and that's it.
And if you're wondering where to download it, it's linked below. Then once you're in it, select a folder to work in. Think of each individual folder as a project that you're working on.
And if you're brand new to Cloud Code, create a master project, and that's where you'll do 90 % of your work. For me, I call this project my internal OS, which is what I use every single day. Once you create that folder, select it, and then write slash init and hit enter.
This will initialize your project, creating a cloud .md file, which is a file that Cloud reads at the start of every session. From there, we've set up our project, but we want to do two other things. The first is create an about this project file.
You'll run this prompt, which will interview you about the project, your role, your business, your audience, etc. And this will set foundational context for Claude to give you better responses. The second is create folders in your project to store important contextual information.
The idea here is you want to curate resources that will help get better responses from Claude. So for example, you could have a favorite book that you want to ingest because you like how it thinks about solving problems. process of creating what's famously known as LM knowledge bases.
And I have a video on my channel with over 800 ,000 views diving deep into this, but simply put, it just creates two folders. The first is a slash raw folder, which is where the original resource will live. This can be the book that you love or the article that you love.
Then we'll create a slash wiki folder, which has files that help AI identify where to look for the raw information. Think of the wiki as the table of contents in a book. We don't want AI looking through the entire book if they just need the information in chapter 10.
And if you're working on a technical project, and wondering if this applies to you well all of this contextual information can help get better responses in terms of things like landing page copy branding guidelines etc so this applies to both technical and non -technical work on screen is the prompt to help you set up your project and create this llm knowledge base so at this point claude knows who you are and we've created a foundation to build on that won't go outdated and won't limit what you can do nothing in this video is wasted effort and this is the foundation that the next six pieces build on top of the second piece of the puzzle is have claude make your life easier.
To make your life easier, Claude needs to work on the actual files on your computer and it needs to make sharing those files super easy. So how do we actually do this? Well, the first step is download Obsidian.
This is a free tool that just lets you view files on your computer very easily. If you're a Mac user, this is just a souped up version of the notes app that you have. Don't overthink of it.
It's just a file viewer. So what you can do is you open it, you create a new vault and then pick the same folder that you're working on in Claude code. Now, every file that Claude edits, you can open it up and edit it right in obsidian as well now you have this collaboration ecosystem that's super easy to navigate the second is we want to become power users of a cloud feature called artifacts an artifact is essentially a mini website that claude makes to visualize something and this mini website can be shared to anybody an individual whatever and so obsidian and artifacts this pair empowers a lot of use cases an example for how i'll use this is i'll work on email copy and cloud code until it's directionally right then i open in an obsidian and will hand type and edit it yeah like Stone Age.
And once I feel it's ready, I'll create an artifact and share it with a team member to help get feedback. And to do this, I'll prompt create an artifact that shows this email visually with the copy we just worked on. Let my team edit it directly in line and add a button that copies all their changes so they can send it back to me.
I share the link to them. They edit right on the page and their changes come back in a form that I can paste straight into Claude to make the edits that they suggested. There's no friction for them.
There's no friction for me. This is how you make your life easier and you set up a foundation that can actually produce productive outcomes.
And we want to become a power user of this artifact feature because it opens up a lot of possibilities. The example that I just shared is more of a single use artifact, which can be used to get feedback or just share information in a format that's visually appealing to somebody else. But another use case that I love is using artifacts to create micro tools.
An example here is that one of my clients runs five different restaurants and he uses an artifact as the drink menu so that the bartenders can see exactly how to make cocktails. If a customer asks them about a drink and they aren't sure how to make it the bartender just opens up this artifact on their phone they don't have to log in there's no app required it's just a link that they access and it's seamless to create you didn't have to spin up a whole website for it so at this point cloud is an excellent collaborative tool but it still can't see anything outside your computer which limits its functionality and i'll get to piece number three which solves this problem but i want to talk a bit about some of the recent features from claude code which brings us today's video sponsor anthropic which you guys know i'm absolutely hyped about because of how much i love claude and claude code and i touched on this last part of the video but clawed code allows you to edit files directly on your computer it reads your files writes the code and actually builds the thing with you and i was talking to two of my friends literally yesterday and they had no idea that you could use clawed code outside of the terminal half the time i personally use it on their desktop app or on their phone app when my fiance tells me that i have to shut my laptop just don't tell her that i'm using the mobile app and since their recent launch of opus 5 this tool has gotten better in three ways the first is routines now i've spoken a lot about this feature on this channel but essentially you set up a prompt
And I've got a bunch running, but the one that I love the most is a weekly review of all of the feedback and future requests that users have on my product, buildpartner .ai. And so what I do is once a week, I have it pull those requests and analyze all of them. And then once it analyzes it, it brings me to the second feature, plan mode.
So once Claude looks at these requests, it uses plan mode to architect a solution without me. Then I'll go in, review the plan, and finalize it based on what I think is best. And with Opus 5, it's actually...
train to push back when it disagrees with me. And frankly, I'd much rather hear it's a bad solution before I decide to build it. And the third feature that's been enhanced is the desktop app.
This is a tool that frankly, I've seen the biggest improvements on. So I use routines to identify the features. Then I use plans to.
create it. So after the plan is ready, I kick off a few agents in parallel using their desktop app, one building a feature, one testing it, and then the other reviewing the design itself. And with a desktop preview, it lets me see the website directly through Claude.
So I never have to switch to another tool. So whether you're technical or not, this tool makes it so you can start building. So click the first link in the description to get started and you are going to be happy that you did.
So at this point, we've learned how to use Claude as a collaborative tool, but it still doesn't have access to any information that's outside of your computer. And this limits its functionality. Which brings us to the third puzzle piece, connect Claude to the external world.
The quality of outputs from Claude comes down to the quality of the information you provide it and the permissions that it has. If you restrict Claude to the model and just your local files, you're limiting what it can do. So the simplest way to connect to the outside world is using Claude's connector feature.
And a lot of you may know about this, but there's a chance that you're missing one key component to setting it up. But starting from the top, for those of you that have never used connectors, open Claude desktop, hit the plus button. then go to connectors then the four connections that i think everyone should have set up is connecting their email their calendar wherever they're sending messages so for me that's slack and then your meeting recordings for meeting recordings i use granola and if you want 100 off that tool it's linked below you guys know that i talk about it a bunch on this channel then once it's connected it's about setting the permissions what you'll notice when you start using connectors is it'll request you for approval for everything if that happens and you're getting frustrated go to the permissions and tweak things so it's in a goldilocks zone it doesn't ask you for approval for everything but it It asks you for approval for things that are super important to get right.
Once you have your connector set up and there are the permissions that you want, go to connectors, tool access, and switch it to load when needed. This will save you tokens and only use the connectors when they're actually needed. 99 % of people don't have this configuration set up.
So go and do that. It'll save you tokens, which will save you money. And once you set up these connectors, you'll be able to interact with the external world and enhance the data that you have access to.
And if there's a specific tool that you don't see connectors that you want, connect to run this prompt which will see if that tool has any sort of custom mcp connection that you can do manually in short an mcp stands for model context protocol and it's how ai interacts with external tools a lot of the biggest tools have first -party integrations with claude but this is how you can set that up if needed so at this point we've established connections to some of the biggest data pipelines that we interact with we can have claude read and send emails on our behalf we can have it checking our calendar to see what we need to prep we can have it looking through our call transcripts to make sure we didn't anything that external data enhances what we're able to do but we're going to find that we're often repeating ourself a lot or we're trying to do the same things over and over again and that's where the fourth piece of the puzzle comes in teach claude new skills this is all about creating custom skills that are specific to what you work on every day and if you master this one piece of the puzzle you are going to be ahead of 99 people i can guarantee you that a skill is a reusable prompt that claude runs so it does the same task the same way every single time someone on reddit said this best skills are
lazy ways to do repeated work so you don't have to retype everything you may know about skills but my guess is you're either creating them wrong or you're not using some of the most important features that they have so first how do you actually create claude skills yes you can just say to claude create me a claude skill to do this but that is not what you should do instead first do the task by hand once go back and forth with claude until the output is correct then say based on this conversation build me a skill and for the sake of this process let's say that creates a skill called monthly report now next time you have to run on this monthly report, use the skill instead of prompting Claude.
And you would do this by typing slash monthly report and it'll do exactly how you did it before. Then step four is the output won't be perfect from the skill the first time. So after fixing the output, going back and forth with Claude, say based on this conversation, enhance the skill I used.
And over time, you'll continue to improve these skills so they get better each time you use them. This skill creation loop is something that you'll continuously run and you'll build out custom skills over time as you need them. My general rule of thumb is if you do something repeatedly, you should make it a skill.
And the workflow I just covered forces you to only build skills that you know you need because it's centered around a task that you actually continuously do. So that's how you actually go about creating and identifying what skills to create. But I've been studying how to best use skills and there are three features that you need to include in your skills.
On screen is a prompt that will enhance your skills with these features, but going through them one at a time. The first is ask user question. This will force Claw to put its question in a clean form instead of a block of text, making the interface.
a lot more enjoyable. On the left side of the screen you can see what it looks like after you enhance it with ask user question and then on the right you'll see what it looks like if you don't use this. This is a big quality of life improvement and you're going to thank me when you do it.
The second is using arguments. If you think about a skill as the logic that runs, an argument is the variable that changes how it actually runs. Let's slow that down and look at the example of the monthly report.
We can add an argument to the skill called output and then when we call the skill we could say slash monthly report pdf. This will make it so that that skill now knows to create the monthly report in a PDF version.
Then we can have it create other formats like artifact or CSV. And depending on the argument and how we call the skill, it'll change the format of the output. And the third feature is sub -agents.
Claude has an ability to split tasks up so that they run simultaneously. This allows it to speed up the process. So in the example of the monthly report skill, let's say it had to look at Slack, QuickBooks, and the internet.
Instead of having to wait one after the other, you can run them all simultaneously with sub -agents. This speeds up the whole process. And yes, it will cost you totally.
so you do wanna be a little bit mindful, but I love just launching sub -agents so that these skills can run that much quicker. And these features aren't necessarily needed for every skill, but the prompt that I'm showing you will help you identify which skills you already have that can be enhanced using these features. Okay, you now know how to create skills, but what are some skills that everybody needs?
I acknowledge that everything that we're covering here can be a bit overwhelming. So in order to continue to use what we're covering, the system has to be easy to maintain. Otherwise, you're just gonna go back to Cloud Chat in the browser, and you're just gonna pretend never saw this video so i want everyone to create skills that helps them maintain their system these are skills that i call utility skills that help keep the system aligned the first is slash add new resource where you can give it a file a link a transcript and it'll ingest it into your system to make sure it goes in the raw and wiki folders that we created in part one of this video the second is an improved system skill this will audit your setup and enhance your skills and context based on what we've been talking about you can use the prompt on screen to create these two skills but if you want to use the exact ones that i use you can use my free buildpartner .ai plugin which is linked below one of the reasons that i love skills is it starts systematizing tasks so you can just run a skill and it'll automatically do everything there which brings us to the sexy part of this puzzle and it's the part that i've personally have wasted the most time on so i'm going to give you what actually works and is all you need piece five of the puzzle is minimum viable automation this is the part that everyone loves to flex right they'll say oh i got hundreds of agents working for me every single night it's doing this it's doing that it's like brother if you have
100 person team working for you i hope you're making 10 million dollars plus a year which i don't think you are they love flexing this stuff but a lot of this is just clickbait garbage so here's what actually matters to automate the tasks that you're working on in cloud code or as we like to call it claude expert mode on the desktop app click routines and then new routine and then select local and you can tell claude what you want to run and when to run it in this case we pick local instead of cloud because it runs on your machine which eliminates any of the variables that come up when you have to run it on the cloud For almost every task, believe it or not, this is sufficient.
And routines is Claude's way of automating tasks for you. It's really that simple. But what are some of the most important things you need to consider?
The first is only build routines with Claude's skills you've already made. In the details of the routine, if you're typing more than a sentence or two, you have failed me. 99 % of what the automation does should be done through a skill.
On a video on my channel, I break this down in detail and I'll link to it at the end of the video, but this is called skill -driven automations. On the left of the screen, you'll see a routine that's properly set up. using skill -driven automations.
And then on the right, you'll see one that isn't properly set up and the difference is very obvious. The second thing to do with routines is for every automation you run, make sure that you get a recap and the recap message is explicit. So essentially at the end of every automation, always notify yourself with an update.
So that could be with Slack, email, whatever you pick, just pick the one that will be the least effort to monitor. Then that message itself, make sure the updates are explicit, not implicit. So in an email automation, for example, use your emails, you would have it say analyze 41 of 41 emails drafted to responses.
You wouldn't just have it say email analysis complete. The best cloud users are building systems that are easy to maintain. And this is a key part of it.
The third thing to consider with routines is create self -breaking systems. Before any automation does anything, run a pre -check that will check every connection it needs. So for example, if an automation needs to be connected to your Slack, it'll check.
And if that Slack connection isn't working, it'll instantly fail. This way, it won't spend the first 20 minutes doing something else. and then eventually break.
Instead, it'll break right at the start. This will save you time, tokens, and money if you do this. On screen, there is a prompt that will help you enforce these rules on your existing routines.
Now you have the whole system running, and this is when you start feeling the power. And then you'll realize, right, you're using clawed code or clawed expert mode, and the reality is it can write code. So a lot like a , you're going to be tempted to start building things.
And that is one of the biggest traps that the next piece of the puzzle will solve. Now, before we get into that, if this is your first video of mine, welcome to the channel. But if it's your second or more, here is our anti -slop agreement.
The visuals, the testing, the hours of research that went into this video, that's entirely built for humans, not for AI robots. So all that I ask as part of this agreement is to hit the subscribe button so this content can reach more people. Also as a thank you, I give away a Clawed Max subscription and last video's winner is Joe Scene CGI for building a health and fitness dashboard.
To enter the next giveaway, comment what you're currently working on and how this video will help you. I truly love hearing about what people are working on and I'm here to help as much as I can.
Now, at this point, we covered five pieces of the puzzle, but there are two more that are absolutely critical. Piece number six is build new things in the right order. You're going to get an itch that's, I want to build an AI tool for this.
This is a good itch, right? You're enthusiastic and it's not one of those bad itches that you have to pretend that you don't have. And that's why we pick call it code in the beginning.
You can build with it, but this is dangerous. I call this the AI hammer problem. Once you learn about AI and you see how powerful it is, .
You're going start reaching for AI for every single problem that you face. And then the second you face a problem, you're instantly like, I'm going to build a skill for this, or I'm going to build my own app that solves this problem.
From my experience, this will lead to you wasting time and focusing on the wrong things. So before you build anything, go through these questions in order. The first is what would I do if AI didn't exist?
This will make you think, is this really an AI problem or is this an operational problem? You want to dive into the root of the issue before you reach for AI. Two is, is it a skill issue?
before reaching for a new tool are you using the current tools properly slow down and if you're unsure if it's a skill issue just ask ai if what you're trying to do is possible with the tool that you're using the third is does the tool already exist there are a lot of tools out there and is making a new version of this tool the highest and best use of your time the fourth is can you make a small tool that enhances a tool that you already use the best way to explain this is through an example that i experienced so my youtube video pipeline that my editors use for project management lives in Notion.
But the problem with this is it doesn't have a good thumbnail visualizer. So instead of replacing Notion, I just built a micro tool that helps me visualize thumbnails. I didn't have to replace a tool.
I built an additional tool that enhanced the one I currently use. In my eyes, too many people think they should replace SaaS products because they can vibe code now. SaaS is a trillion dollar industry for a reason.
Don't rebuild a worse version of something you already use or is already pretty cheap. And the reality is in a team. setting, a small tool that makes the existing thing better is 1000 % more likely to land than switching everyone to something you built in a weekend.
And finally, number five, after going through all of those steps, only then do I consider making my own product. And at that point, you need to strip down what you want and start with an MVP. This is the smallest thing that provides the concrete value that you need.
And a lot of the times an artifact through Claude can serve as an MVP. But if you want to go down the rabbit hole of building out your own product, type and say, I want to build.
product, interview me to identify the MVP and make sure the value is clear. And if you're technically watching this, you likely have this part of the process nailed down. And if you aren't, this is enough to get started.
The reality is that most of producing high value work with AI is avoiding distractions. And this last piece of the puzzle will help you avoid distractions in your life. And it is the advice that changed the trajectory of my career.
Piece number seven is make everything congruent. Warren Buffett has a famous quote, my life has been a product of compound interest, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing brilliant. If you build slowly and work in the right direction without being distracted good things happen ai will let you learn anything and build anything and yes this creates a mountain of opportunities but these opportunities can be distracting for most people they'll start one thing they start the next thing and they aren't actually building anything and they're going all over the place there's no congruency in this video we created a foundation that can be built on top of without becoming obsolete once you hit a certain level that's the setup but now you as the user you need to point it in the right direction in my life, once I made everything congruent, I started seeing the biggest productivity gains.
I won't dive into details of my story. You can see that in the description. And so for you, before you start or do anything, and I will make this hard, remember what Warren Buffett said.
My life has been a product of compound interest. Nothing more, nothing less, and nothing brilliant. That completes the puzzle.
Focus on doing things that are all congruent so that they can build and compound on each other and you're not starting from scratch every single time. That is the whole puzzle. Seven pieces in order.
And it's exactly what I would learn if I was starting from scratch. And once you're here, you're going to want to automate more and more. And unfortunately, you're going to struggle getting valuable outputs from the automations that you built.
So linked here is a video where I go through a deep dive on how to build out automations that are simple and effective. This builds on everything I covered here. And if you like this video, you will love that one.
I'll see you over there. Peace.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Two and a half years of daily Claude use gets compressed into seven pieces here, learned in the order that actually compounds, not the order most people stumble into by accident.
Named ideas worth stealing.
00:00list
The Seven Pieces of the Claude Puzzle
- Set Up Your Workspace
- Have Claude Make Your Life Easier
- Connect Claude To The External World
- Teach Claude New Skills
- Minimum Viable Automation
- Build New Things, In The Right Order
- Make Everything Congruent
An ordered 80/20 curriculum for learning Claude from scratch, in the sequence claimed to compound instead of the sequence beginners usually stumble through.
Steal forany 'how to onboard onto a tool' educational format; order-of-operations content converts because it removes decision paralysis
11:46list
Three Skill-Enhancement Features
- AskUserQuestion
- Arguments
- Subagents
The three upgrades that turn a rough Claude Skill into a polished, reusable one: clean multiple-choice prompts instead of text blocks, variables that change behavior per call, and parallel sub-agent execution for multi-source lookups.
Steal forauditing any Claude Skill in the mod-creator pipeline for missing structure
17:20list
Before You Build Anything Checklist
- What would I do if AI didn't exist?
- Is it a skill issue?
- Does the tool already exist?
- Can you make a small tool that enhances a tool you already use?
- Only then: build an MVP
A five-question filter run before building any new AI tool, designed to catch the 'AI hammer' problem where every issue starts looking like a nail.
Steal forgut-checking any new micro-tool idea before spending a session building it
15:00list
Three Routine Hygiene Rules
- Only build routines from skills you've already made
- End every automation with an explicit recap, not an implicit one
- Pre-check every connection before running, so it fails fast instead of breaking twenty minutes in
Three rules for keeping scheduled automations reliable and cheap to run.
Steal forany scheduled Claude Routine or CLI automation job
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
07:20product
“So whether you're technical or not, this tool makes it so you can start building. So click the first link in the description to get started.”
Sponsor pitch is woven directly into a feature walkthrough (Routines, Plan Mode, parallel desktop-app agents) using his own weekly product-feedback review as the example, rather than a separate disconnected ad read.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
AFFILIATECommission earned if you click.
OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.
- Get my free 5-day AI playbook (what I used to build a $25M+ startup) ↗
- The Easiest Way to Automate Your Life With Claude (where I break down Skill Driven Automations) ↗
- The ultimate guide to Claude Code ↗
- Claude Code isn't for coding ↗
- The Claude Code trap ↗
- Use BuildPartner to build 10x faster with Claude Code (try free) ↗
- Want to build a Custom AI App that saves you 10+ Hours a week ↗
- Claude Desktop App ↗
- Obsidian ↗
- Claude Routines docs ↗
Visual structure at a glance.
