Automate Your Work with Claude (Scheduled Tasks)

In this walkthrough you will set up your first Scheduled Task in Claude Cowork: an automation that runs on a schedule even when you are not at your computer. I build a daily 7 AM calendar briefing live, from the first prompt to the finished task card, and show you how to review, modify, run, and delete it afterwards. If you are drowning in manual work, this is one of the easiest ways to start clawing back real time.

What you need

• Claude Cowork, the version of Claude that has access to your computer and can modify local files in any folder you give it access to.
• Your everyday tools connected to Claude Cowork before you start: your email, your calendar, your note taker, and whatever else the automation will need.
• A computer that stays on. Scheduled tasks run while you are away, but if your machine is sleeping, nothing runs.

1. What is Claude Cowork (0:07)

At 0:07 I set the stage. Claude Cowork is the version of Claude that actually has access to your computer. It can read and modify local files in any folder you grant it, which is exactly what makes it useful for automation: the output of a scheduled run can land as a file in a folder you check every morning.

2. Scheduled Tasks: automations that run while you are away (0:16)

Scheduled Tasks are tasks that run even if you are not at your computer. The one caveat, and it matters: your computer has to stay turned on. If it is sleeping, the task will not run.

With that constraint accepted, you can run very simple automations: meeting preparation, daily briefs, content ideas, monitoring a topic.

3. From simple briefs to research, due diligence and CRM (0:32)

Do not let the simple examples fool you. At 0:32 I explain that scheduled tasks can carry genuinely complex work: due diligence, market research, even automating things inside your CRM so you keep track of everything going on inside your business, all within this one feature in Claude Cowork. If you want to deploy one of the simple prebuilt ones, you can just click it and Claude Cowork helps you set it up.

4. Connect your tools first (1:11)

Before you begin, connect Claude Cowork to all the tools you are going to use: your email, your calendar, your note taker, and so on. This is worth doing up front so Claude Cowork has access to everything it needs. In my demo it automatically detects the connections I already have: Slack, Notion, Calendar, and other tools.

5. Create a scheduled task: with Claude vs manually (1:25)

To create a new scheduled task you click one button, and you get two options: create with Claude, or set it up manually. I highly recommend doing it with Claude. The interactive route drops you into a chat where Claude asks questions and you get a feel for how the automation is going to work. Doing it manually gives you none of that feedback.

6. Walkthrough: setting up a daily briefing (1:51)

At 1:51 the actual build starts. Claude Cowork opens a new chat window and asks a few questions about the type of automation I want. My advice: start with something simple. Even just having it check all your emails is extremely powerful if you are swimming in information.

Here is what I told it, piece by piece, as it asked:

I want a daily briefing.
Deliver it as a file in my folder, so I can check that file every single day.
Only check calendar and meetings.
Run it early in the morning.

Two things to notice. First, it offered to deliver via Slack message as well, so if Slack is where you live, that is an option. Second, the more information you give it, the better the automation gets.

7. Leave your computer on so it runs (2:46)

Claude Cowork gives you the option of keeping your computer awake while a task is due to run. You can simply walk away, the machine will not go to sleep, and the automation fires at its scheduled time. Set it for 7 AM and it runs at 7 AM. In my case, Claude confirms: a task scheduled every morning at 7 AM that pulls today's calendar events and saves the result as a file inside the working folder. One click on Schedule and it is live.

8. Review the task and its prompt (3:30)

Once the task exists, click into it and you land on the Scheduled view. You see the new task active at 7 AM, its instructions (which are literally the same text as the prompt), the run time, and which connections it is allowed to use: your email, your Google Meet, and so on.

9. Modify, run now, and delete (3:58)

Back in Scheduled Tasks, each task shows as a card. From there you can modify it whenever you need, or hit Run now to watch it execute immediately and see exactly what it does. You can delete an individual run, and when you no longer need the task at all, delete the whole thing. That is the full lifecycle: create, review, run, modify, delete.

Pitfalls and tips

• The number one gotcha: a sleeping computer means no run. Use the built-in option to keep the machine awake, or make sure it stays on.
• Create tasks with Claude, not manually. The interactive setup is how you discover what the automation will actually do before it is live.
• Connect your tools before you create the task, not after. Claude detects existing connections and builds around them.
• Start simple, then escalate. A calendar-and-meetings brief first; market research, due diligence, and CRM upkeep once you trust the loop.

Where to go next

Claude can also run scheduled work inside your team's Slack. See Claude Tag: Your New AI Employee in Slack. And to make Claude genuinely useful on your own data before you automate anything, read What an AI Second Brain Actually Is.