The 5 Settings That Make AI Actually Yours
Ten minutes in the settings is the difference between generic answers and answers built for your work. Five settings, with the text to paste in.
Two people can ask Claude the exact same question and get completely different answers. Not because one of them wrote a magic prompt. Because one of them spent ten minutes in the settings.
Out of the box, Claude is tuned for the average of everyone, and the average of everyone is nobody. Certainly not you, with your clients, your week and your low tolerance for waffle.
Five settings. Ten minutes. Do them in order.
1. Tell it who you are
Where: Settings → Profile (under General). You’re looking for the box that asks what Claude should know about you and how it should respond.
Every time an untuned Claude answers you, it’s answering a stranger. It has to guess whether you want three lines or three pages, and whether “budget” means a household or a business. Guessing gives you beige.
Fill in the blanks and paste it in:
About me: I'm [NAME]. My work is mostly [ONE LINE, for example "mobile hairdressing, mainly older regulars, I do my own bookings and accounts" or "freelance bookkeeping for tradespeople"].
How to respond to me: use British English. Short answer first, offer the detail after, rather than the essay up front. No jargon unless you explain it in the same sentence. If my request is vague, ask me one or two questions before you start instead of producing a polite guess. If something I've asked for is a bad idea, say so and tell me why.Those last two sentences are the antidote to AI’s most annoying habit, which is enthusiastically agreeing with everything. You want an assistant, not a mirror.
Can’t face writing it? Get it written.
Nick this one:
You're writing the profile instructions I'll paste into my Claude settings, so every future chat starts knowing me. My work: [one line]. What I mostly use you for: [for example "client emails, quotes, chasing invoices, social posts"]. What annoys me in answers: [for example "waffle, American spelling, being told my idea is amazing"].
Give me:
1. The finished text, under 150 words, written in the first person as if I wrote it.
2. Three lines underneath explaining what each part will change about your answers.
3. One sentence on what I should add in a month once I know what irritates me.
Rules: plain English, British English spelling, no buzzwords, and give me the final version only, ready to paste. Ask me up to three questions before you start.2. Check what it remembers
Where: Settings, then the memory option. Look for the link to view and edit what it’s stored.
Memory is switched on by default for most accounts now, which means Claude has probably been building a picture of you already. Without it, every chat starts from zero and you explain your business again like a very polite Groundhog Day. With it, conversations compound.
The move here is opening the list and reading it, because a memory that’s gone stale quietly bends every answer you get. If your work has changed, tell it: “Update your memory, I’ve stopped taking wedding work.”
3. Decide about your data on purpose
Where: Settings → Privacy. The toggle about using your chats to help improve Claude.
This one doesn’t change a single answer. It changes how much you trust the thing you’re typing into, which changes what you’re willing to type into it. People who feel vaguely uneasy paste in pretend problems instead of real ones, get useless answers, and conclude AI is overrated.
There’s no wrong position. On, off, both respectable. The only wrong state is “never looked”. Thirty seconds, decide, done, and now you can use it properly.
4. Put it one click away
Where: claude.ai/download, the desktop app.
This one decides whether the other four ever get used. If asking Claude means finding the browser, then the tab, then getting distracted by the other forty tabs, you’ll just do the task by hand like it’s 2019. The app sits in your dock like a colleague at the next desk.
Get the phone app too, mostly for voice mode. Talking a problem through between jobs beats typing it at midnight.
5. Set the tone once
Where: the plus menu in the chat box, then the styles option. Built-in ones like concise and formal, or create your own.
The test: if you’ve typed “shorter” or “less formal” more than three times this week, you’re applying a setting by hand, over and over. Set it once instead.
Don’t build five elaborate styles on day one, like the fancy stitches on a sewing machine. One that matches how you like to be spoken to covers nearly everything. Your profile tells Claude who it’s talking to. A style tells it how to sound.
Where this stops
- Settings sharpen answers, they don’t ask the questions. A perfectly tuned Claude still sits there until you give it a job.
- A personalised wrong answer is still wrong. Keep checking anything that matters.
- Menus move. If something isn’t where I’ve said, it’ll be one section away, and the destination is what to look for.
The one move
Number 1. Two minutes in the profile box improves every conversation you’ll ever have, forever, with no further effort.
Once memory’s been running a while, it’s worth knowing exactly what’s in there: What Claude Remembers About You (And How To Edit It).
That’s Claude tuned to you. The Claude Kickstart is Claude taught your actual trade, with five real jobs handed over and a playbook for your work. £47, one weekend.