So you just signed up for Claude. Here’s everything you need to actually use it.
Most people sign up for Claude, type a few questions, think “okay, that’s pretty cool,” and then barely scratch what it can do.
That’s like buying a $50k car and only using it to sit in the driveway.
This guide is for people who want to ACTUALLY set it up right from day one. No fluff. Just the stuff that matters.
What is Claude?
Claude is an AI assistant built by Anthropic. Think of it like a smarter, calmer version of ChatGPT.
A few things that make Claude stand out:
It writes like a human. If you’ve ever cringed at how obvious it is that something was written by AI, you’ll notice the difference with Claude immediately. It doesn’t default to bullet points and peppy intros. It actually sounds like a person.
It pushes back. Claude won’t just agree with everything you say. If your idea has a problem, it’ll tell you. That’s not a bug. That’s a feature.
It can hold a LOT of context. Claude can process up to a million tokens at once. That’s roughly 750,000 words. You can hand it an entire book, a full client project, months of emails, and it won’t lose the thread.
How to Access Claude
There are three ways to use it:
- Web: claude.ai in your browser
- Desktop App: Download for Mac or Windows at claude.ai/download
- Mobile: Available on iOS and Android in the App Store / Google Play
The desktop app unlocks some extra features (more on that below), so I’d recommend downloading it even if you mostly work from a browser.
Free vs. Pro: What Do You Actually Get?
The free plan is genuinely good. You get access to Claude Sonnet (Anthropic’s everyday workhorse model), web search, memory, Artifacts, and file creation. There’s a message limit that resets every few hours, but for light daily use it’s plenty.
Claude Pro ($20/month) gives you:
- 5x more usage
- Access to Claude Opus 4.7 (the most powerful model, built for complex reasoning)
- Priority access during peak hours
- Extended Thinking mode (Claude “pauses” and reasons through hard problems before answering)
For most people just getting started, I’d try the free plan for a week first. You’ll know pretty quickly if you’re hitting limits.
5 Things to Do the MOMENT You Sign Up
Here are 5 things you should do immediately once you start using Claude:
1. Turn On Memory
This is probably the single biggest thing most beginners miss.
By default, Claude doesn’t remember anything between conversations. Every chat is a blank slate. That’s annoying when you have to re-explain your business, your writing style, or your preferences every single time.
Memory fixes that. Once it’s on, Claude learns who you are across conversations and carries that context forward.
How to turn it on:
- Go to your User Profile → Settings (bottom left corner)
- Click Capabilities
- Toggle on Search and reference chats and Generate memory from chat history
That’s it. Over time, Claude will start building a profile of your preferences, your work context, and how you like things done. You can view, edit, and delete any of it in that same Settings panel.
After you turn those memory settings on, start a new conversation and tell Claude a few key things about yourself. Your name, what you do, how you like to communicate. It’ll pick that up and remember it going forward.
2. Import Your Memory from ChatGPT (or Other AI Tools)
If you’ve been using ChatGPT or another AI tool, you don’t have to start from scratch with Claude.
You can actually import your memory. Claude will pull in your preferences and context from other platforms so it already knows your style, your work, and your background when you start.
How to do it:
- Go to Settings → Capabilities → Memory
- Look for the Import Memory section and click Start import
- Follow the prompts to bring in your data from ChatGPT or another AI tool
This one step can save you hours of re-explaining yourself.
3. Turn On Interactive Visuals
This is where Claude starts to feel genuinely different from every other AI tool out there.
There are actually three toggles you want to enable, all in the same place. When these are on, Claude can build interactive tools, charts, calculators, flowcharts, formatted documents, website mockups, and more. They show up in a dedicated panel right next to your chat. You can interact with them, iterate on them, and share them with a link.
How to turn them on:
- Go to Settings → Capabilities and find the Visuals section
- Toggle on Artifacts
- Toggle on AI-powered artifacts
- Toggle on Inline visualizations
Once they’re all on, try asking Claude something like: “Build me an interactive 15-color palette for a personal brand around toxic-free living.” It’ll generate a beautiful, clickable color palette right inside the chat.
That’s something no other AI tool does. And it works for way more than color palettes. Pricing calculators, interactive quizzes, data dashboards, working web tools you can share with a link. All from a conversation. No code required.
4. Browse Claude Skills (And Connect Your Apps)
Skills are pre-built workflows you can add to Claude to handle specific tasks automatically. Think of them as power-ups. There are dozens available, built by Anthropic and the community, covering things like marketing, research, writing, coding, and more.
How to find them:
- In the left sidebar, click Customize
- Click Skills
- Hit the + button
- Click Browse Skills
You’ll see a catalog of Skills you can add with one click. One worth checking out right away: the Skill Creator Skill. Once you add it, you can build your OWN custom Skills tailored to exactly how you work. That’s pretty powerful.
Bonus: Connect Claude to Your Other Apps
While you’re in there, look for Connectors in that same Customize area. This is where you can link Claude to apps you already use. Gmail, Google Calendar, Canva, and more.
Once connected, Claude can actually work inside those tools. Draft emails in your Gmail style, create Canva designs from a prompt, pull your calendar to plan your week. It turns Claude from a standalone chat tool into something that’s woven into your whole workflow.
5. Take Anthropic’s Free Claude Courses
Most people learn Claude by trial and error. There’s a faster way.
Anthropic built a free learning platform at anthropic.skilljar.com with 17 free courses covering everything from Claude basics to advanced AI workflows. These are official courses, not YouTube tutorials from random creators. They’re genuinely good.
A few worth starting with:
- Claude 101 = The perfect first course. Core features, everyday tasks, and how to actually get things done.
- Introduction to Claude Cowork = Takes you through the desktop app’s most powerful features.
- AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations = Broader strategic thinking about how to work with AI effectively.
Copy the URL (anthropic.skilljar.com) and paste it into a Claude chat. Then say: “Based on what you know about me, which of these courses would you recommend?”
Claude will look at your background and goals and give you a personalized course recommendation. It’s a great example of how memory + context makes Claude genuinely useful in ways other AI tools aren’t.
5 More Features Worth Knowing
Here are 5 more features that will take Claude to the next level:
Set Your User Preferences
This is basically custom instructions that apply to every conversation. You tell Claude things like your name, what you do, your preferred tone, and things you never want it to do.
How to set it up:
- Go to Settings → General
- Type in your instructions in the Personal Preferences area
Here’s a sample to customize:
“I’m [your name], a [what you do]. Keep responses conversational and direct. No bullet points unless I ask. Skip the preamble and get to the point. Write like a real person.”
The more specific you are, the better Claude will match your style automatically.
Understanding the Models
When you start a new chat, you’ll see a model selector. Quick breakdown:
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 = Your everyday workhorse. Fast, smart, handles most tasks well. Start here.
- Claude Opus 4.7 = The deep thinker. Slower but significantly better at complex reasoning, long documents, and nuanced work. Worth switching to for bigger projects (Pro plan only).
Most conversations are fine on Sonnet. Switch to Opus when you need serious horsepower.
Projects: Your AI Workspaces
Projects are dedicated workspaces where Claude holds a specific context for a specific purpose. Think of each Project as a separate brain.
You could create:
- A Content Project with your brand voice, target audience, and examples
- A Client Work Project with your processes and deliverables
- A Personal Project for journaling, planning, or learning
Inside each Project, you can upload documents, set custom instructions, and have every conversation automatically draw on that context. This is the feature that turns Claude from a chatbot into a real work tool.
You can access Projects in the sidebar.
Research Mode: Deep Dives on Any Topic
When you need more than a quick answer, Research mode is extraordinary. It searches the web, reads multiple sources, cross-references the information, and builds you a thorough analysis.
When starting a chat, click the ‘+‘ then click on Research in the dropdown to enable Research mode. Then ask something like “Give me a competitive analysis of [industry]” or “Research the top tools for [topic] and compare them.”
It does the reading for you.
The Desktop App + Cowork
Download the Claude desktop app and you unlock Cowork, which is the newest and most powerful feature for non-developers.
Cowork lets Claude work directly on your actual files. Give it a project folder, a collection of documents, a spreadsheet. It can read them, edit them, organize them, and complete multi-step tasks without you having to copy/paste everything into a chat.
Web Search
Claude can search the internet in real time. This is on by default, but it’s worth knowing it exists. When you ask about something current or time-sensitive, Claude will pull live results rather than relying on what it was trained on.
When starting a chat, click the ‘+” and then make sure Web search is enabled. Leave it on for most conversations.
How to Actually Prompt Claude Well
The biggest beginner mistake is treating Claude like Google. You type a vague question, get a generic answer, and then close the tab.
Here’s a better approach:
Give it context. Instead of “write me an email,” try “write me a follow-up email to a potential client who hasn’t responded in two weeks. My business is [X]. Keep it short and non-pushy.”
Tell it what you DON’T want. “Don’t use bullet points. Don’t add a disclaimer at the end. Don’t make it sound like AI wrote it.”
Iterate. Claude is a conversation, not a one-shot tool. Say “make it shorter,” “change the tone,” “try a different angle.” Most people give up after the first response. The good stuff often comes from the back and forth.
Use Projects, Preferences, and Skills. The more context Claude already has built in, the less you have to explain each time.
Quick-Start Checklist
Here’s everything in one place:
- [ ] Sign up at claude.ai (free to start)
- [ ] Go to Settings → Capabilities → Turn on Memory settings
- [ ] Import your memory from ChatGPT if you’ve been using it
- [ ] Go to Settings → Capabilities → Turn on Artifacts, AI-powered artifacts, and Inline visualizations
- [ ] In the sidebar → Customize → Skills → Browse and add Skills
- [ ] Connect your apps via Connectors (Gmail, Google Calendar, Canva)
- [ ] Visit anthropic.skilljar.com and ask Claude which courses to take first
- [ ] Set up your User Preferences in Settings
- [ ] Download the Claude Desktop App for Mac or Windows
- [ ] Create your first Project for your main work area
- [ ] Start a chat and actually try something. Don’t just ask it questions. Build something.
The Honest Take
Claude isn’t perfect. No AI tool is. It can still get things wrong, and you always want to verify anything important.
But it is the best all-around AI writing and thinking tool available right now. And it keeps getting better with all of the insanely fast updates Anthropic is making to Claude from week-to-week.
The people who get the most out of it aren’t the ones who use it for everything immediately. They’re the ones who pick one or two specific use cases, set it up properly, and actually build the habit.
Start there. The rest follows.
Want to go deeper? I teach a full creator framework inside JP Creator Academy, a community for creators building online businesses with AI. Come check it out.
