How to Use Claude Cowork (Step-by-Step Tutorial)

About this video

Kevin gives a step-by-step tutorial on Claude Cowork, contrasting it with regular Claude Chat: Chat answers questions, while Cowork is designed to actually do work by accessing your files and tools on your computer and in the cloud — no coding required. He notes Cowork requires one of Claude’s paid plans and recommends the Claude Desktop app (Windows, Mac, Linux) over the web version for full access to local files and folders. Using sales data for the fictional Kevin Cookie Company — the first three months in a messy local folder mixing text files, PDFs, and spreadsheets — he grants Cowork folder access and asks it to analyze all the data and build an interactive dashboard. Cowork works through the files step by step, combines the data, shows KPIs, sales trends, and key insights, and even flags a potential data quality issue rather than blindly including it. He saves the dashboard as an artifact for later access and notes it can also be downloaded. Next he connects Google Drive via Customize > Connectors, then asks Cowork — with an intentionally vague prompt — to find the remaining sales data in Drive and update the dashboard, which it does, expanding it to 24 weeks of data with refreshed KPIs, charts, and insights. He iterates by asking for the company’s blue and maize brand colors. To avoid repeating instructions weekly, he has Claude create a reusable skill that checks for new sales data, compares it with the previous week, pulls key insights, and updates the dashboard; after uploading three more weeks of data to Drive, he runs the skill successfully. He then schedules the skill to run automatically every Monday morning, explaining that the skill defines how the work is done and the schedule defines when. Finally, in a sponsored segment, he shows Zapier MCP giving Cowork access to thousands of apps and actions through one connection where you choose exactly which actions Claude may take — he connects Trello, and Cowork analyzes sales and creates a Trello card with a recommended action plan.

Key takeaways

• Cowork differs from Chat by doing multi-step work: give it folder access and it reads multiple files (text, PDFs, spreadsheets), combines and analyzes them, and produces a finished result like an interactive dashboard.
• Cowork needs a paid Claude plan, and the Desktop app gives the full experience including direct access to local files and folders; outputs can be saved as artifacts or downloaded.
• Connectors (Customize > Connectors) link cloud sources like Google Drive so Cowork can find and merge cloud data without manual downloads — it updated the dashboard to 24 weeks from a deliberately vague prompt.
• Skills capture how you want recurring work done and can be scheduled (e.g., every Monday morning) so Cowork repeats the process automatically instead of you re-prompting each week.
• Zapier MCP extends Cowork to thousands of apps through a single connection, and you control exactly which actions Claude is allowed to take in each app.

Episode details: published August 17, 2026 · 9:42 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Kevin Stratvert’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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