You've completed Week 1. In six days, you've gone from "What is this?" to understanding the core architecture of one of the most capable AI work agents available. Today we'll consolidate what you've learned, establish the best practices that will keep your work safe and effective, and look ahead to what Week 2 unlocks.
Let's review where you stand.
Here's the foundation you've built, day by day:
Day 1 — What Is Cowork: You learned that Cowork is an AI agent, not a chatbot. It takes action on your behalf — reading files, creating documents, executing multi-step tasks, and delivering real results. It was born from developers using Claude Code for non-coding work, and Anthropic built it as "Claude Code for the rest of your work."
Day 2 — Setting Up Cowork: You installed Claude Desktop, found the Cowork tab, created a dedicated work folder, and granted folder permissions. You understood why Cowork needs the desktop app (local file access) and why a dedicated folder matters (safety and control).
Day 3 — Your First Task: You learned the core loop — describe, review, run, refine. You practiced being specific about outputs, reviewing Claude's plan before execution, watching it work with transparency, and course-correcting mid-task.
Day 4 — Working with Files: You discovered that Claude creates real files — Word documents with proper formatting, Excel spreadsheets with working formulas and charts, PowerPoint presentations with professional layouts, and PDFs. You also learned about batch operations for processing many files at once.
Day 5 — Sub-Agents & Parallel Work: You understood how Claude spawns sub-agents for tasks with independent parts, dramatically reducing execution time. You learned to frame tasks in ways that enable parallelism.
Day 6 — Browser Automation: You set up the Claude in Chrome extension and learned how Claude navigates websites, extracts data, fills forms, and gathers research — connecting Cowork to the entire web.
Each capability is useful on its own. But the real power of Cowork emerges when they combine.
File access + Sub-agents: Process 20 documents in parallel, each analyzed by its own sub-agent, with results compiled into a master spreadsheet. What would take you an entire afternoon finishes in minutes.
File access + Browser: Extract data from 10 websites and compile it into a formatted Excel report. Research online, deliver offline. No copy-pasting between browser tabs and spreadsheets.
Sub-agents + Browser: Send 5 sub-agents to research 5 different websites simultaneously, then combine the findings into a single briefing document. Parallel web research at a pace no human can match.
All three together: Read your client list from a local file, research each client's company online using parallel sub-agents, and generate a personalized proposal document for each. That's a task that would take a team of people a full day, completed in a fraction of the time.
This compound effect is what makes Cowork genuinely transformative for knowledge work. Each capability multiplies the others.
As you move into Week 2 and start tackling more complex workflows, keep these practices in mind:
Always use a dedicated work folder. Don't let scope creep push you into giving Claude access to your entire file system. Create project-specific subfolders within your work folder to keep things organized.
Back up important files. Before asking Claude to modify existing files, make a copy. Claude is good, but mistakes happen. A backup takes seconds and prevents headaches.
Review the plan before running. This is the single most important habit. When Claude shows you its plan, read it. Check that it matches your expectations. Correct misunderstandings before they become file operations.
Say "don't delete anything" when appropriate. If you're asking Claude to reorganize or modify files, explicitly state whether deletion is acceptable. Claude respects this instruction and will move or rename instead of deleting.
Be specific about outputs. "Create a report" is vague. "Create a 3-page Word document with an executive summary, detailed findings, and recommendations" gives Claude what it needs to deliver exactly what you want.
Course-correct in real time. Don't wait until a task is done to give feedback. If you see Claude heading in the wrong direction, interrupt and redirect. It's always cheaper to correct mid-task than to redo the work.
Week 2 introduces plugins — and they change everything.
On January 30, 2026, Anthropic launched the Cowork plugin system. Plugins are bundles of skills, connectors, slash commands, and sub-agents that extend Claude's capabilities for specific domains.
There are 11 official open-source plugins:
- Productivity — Task management, email drafting, meeting prep
- Enterprise Search — Finding information across company systems
- Marketing — Campaign creation, content planning, audience analysis
- Sales — Pipeline management, proposal generation, outreach
- Legal — Contract review, compliance checking, document analysis
- Finance — Financial modeling, reporting, budget analysis
- Support — Ticket analysis, response drafting, knowledge base management
- Product — PRD writing, competitive analysis, roadmap planning
- Data Analysis — Statistical analysis, visualization, data cleaning
- Research — Deep-dive research, literature review, synthesis
- Plugin Create — Build your own custom plugins
Starting on Day 8, you'll learn how to install and use these plugins to supercharge your workflows.