One AI, All Your Tools: 10 Steps to a Claude That Runs Your Workflow

Last Tuesday, I asked Claude to check my Google Calendar for open slots, draft an email to a colleague about a manuscript revision, and save the draft to Gmail. Claude did all three without me switching a single application. I stayed in one window. Claude moved between the tools.

That used to require opening three apps, copying information between them, and remembering to follow up. Now it requires one sentence.

This is what happens when Claude connects to the tools you already use. It stops being a separate application you visit and becomes the layer that runs across everything. Here are 10 steps to get there.

The 10 Steps

Step 1: Understand what Connectors are. Connectors are bridges between Claude and the applications you already use—Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack, Google Drive, and others. When a Connector is active, Claude can read from and act inside that application. It is not a separate login or a new platform. It is Claude reaching into your existing tools. Think of it as giving your research fellow access to your email and calendar instead of making her walk to your office every time she needs information.

Step 2: Connect Google Calendar first. Calendar is the easiest Connector to start with because the risk is low and the value is immediate. In Cowork, Claude will prompt you to connect your calendar when you ask about scheduling. Follow the authorization steps. Once connected, you can say “What is on my schedule Thursday afternoon?” or “Find me a free 30-minute slot this week” and Claude answers from your actual calendar—not a guess.

Step 3: Connect Gmail. Once Calendar works, connect Gmail. Now Claude can search your inbox, read specific emails, and draft replies. This is not Claude sending emails without your permission. It drafts them. You review. You send. But the drafting—finding the right thread, pulling relevant context, writing in your voice—that part is handled. For someone who writes 30 emails a day, this is not a novelty. It is a time savings you can measure.

Step 4: Connect Google Drive. If your documents live in Google Drive, connecting it lets Claude search and read files stored there. You can say “Find the manuscript draft I worked on last week” and Claude locates it. Combined with your Skills, this means Claude can find a file, read it, and process it—all without you downloading anything or pasting text into a chat window.

Step 5: Set up Global Instructions. Global Instructions are preferences that apply across every conversation and every project. They are the constants in your workflow. Your name. Your degree. Your department. Your citation format. Your writing style. Set these once in Claude’s settings. They run forever, in every context. When Claude drafts an email, it signs with your correct credentials. When it writes a summary, it uses your preferred format. No reminders needed.

Step 6: Try Dispatch from your phone. Dispatch is Claude’s mobile feature. It lets you send instructions to Claude on your computer from your phone. You are at dinner and remember you need a summary of a paper sitting in your Cowork folder. Open Dispatch, type the instruction, and Claude executes it on your desktop. When you get home, the work is done. It is remote access to your AI workflow—not remote access to your computer, but to Claude running on it.

Step 7: Use Claude Computer for native desktop apps. Claude Computer is the feature that lets Claude see and interact with your Mac screen. It can click buttons, read what is displayed, scroll through documents, and navigate applications that do not have Connectors. If you need Claude to pull data from a desktop application that has no API—a hospital reporting dashboard, for instance, or a reference manager—Claude Computer is how it gets access. You grant permission for each application. Claude never acts on your screen without your approval.

Step 8: Combine Connectors with Skills. This is where the system becomes more than the sum of its parts. A Skill defines what Claude does. A Connector defines where it does it. Combine them: a Skill that summarizes a study and a Gmail Connector that drafts the summary to your co-author. A Skill that generates a patient handout and a Drive Connector that saves it to your shared clinical folder. A Skill that reviews your weekly schedule and a Calendar Connector that identifies conflicts. Each combination removes a manual step from your day.

Step 9: Build a Cowork Project for persistent memory. A Cowork Project is a workspace that persists between sessions. Your files stay. Your instructions stay. Your conversation history stays. Unlike regular Projects that reset context, a Cowork Project remembers what you worked on last time and picks up where you left off. Use this for ongoing work—a manuscript in progress, a research analysis that runs over weeks, a content calendar you update monthly. You do not restart. You continue.

Step 10: Audit your workflow and automate one more task each week. Now step back and look at your week. Where do you switch between applications? Where do you copy information from one place to another? Where do you do the same task on a schedule? Each of these is a candidate for a Connector, a Skill, or a Scheduled Task. You do not need to automate everything at once. One new automation per week. In two months, your workflow looks fundamentally different—not because you changed how you practice medicine, but because you stopped doing manually what a machine should handle.

My Take

I hear physicians say they do not have time to learn AI. This is exactly backward. You do not have time not to learn it. Every hour you spend configuring these tools saves you multiple hours every week for the rest of your career. The return on investment is not linear. It compounds.

The physicians who will thrive in the next decade are not the ones who know the most medicine. Medical knowledge is no longer scarce—Claude has access to more literature than any human can read in a lifetime. The physicians who will thrive are the ones who know how to use that knowledge efficiently. Who can direct an AI the way a senior attending directs a team: clearly, specifically, with the judgment that only experience provides.

You started this series using 5% of Claude. If you have followed all three posts, you are now using most of it. The chat window was the lobby. You have been given the keys to the building. Use them.

Part 4 of the series “You Are Using 5% of Your AI.” This is the final installment. Read the full series at obmd.com.

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