AI Setup For People Who Hate Setting Things Up
Three steps, ten minutes, and the big one is a copy and paste that makes Claude set itself up for you.
Most setup guides are written by people who enjoy setting things up. You can tell. They say things like “take a moment to explore the preferences pane” as if that’s a treat.
This one is for the rest of us. The drawer of unidentified cables. The telly still showing a setup wizard. The strong suspicion that “just configure it” is how they get you.
Three steps, about ten minutes, and the biggest one is a copy and paste. After that you’re allowed to stop.
Step 1: Get through the door (2 minutes)
Go to claude.ai and sign up with your email or a Google account. That’s it.
You do not need the desktop app today. Or the phone app. Or to compare plans, watch a tutorial, or read a review. The free plan is fine for trying it.
The bit nobody tells you: skipping the extras is good sequencing. Add-ons are worth having after the tool has proven useful, because by then you’ll want them. Downloading four things before you’ve typed one sentence is how setup fatigue wins.
Step 2: Make it set itself up (5 minutes)
This is the whole guide. Instead of you filling in settings forms, Claude interviews you and writes its own notes.
Open a new chat, paste this, and answer like a tired person. One-word answers are fine.
Nick this one:
You're setting yourself up for me, because I hate setting things up.
Interview me first. Short questions, strictly one at a time, six maximum. Find out roughly who I am, what fills my days, the jobs I put off most, and how I like things explained (short or detailed, formal or relaxed). Accept lazy answers without fuss and don't ask me to elaborate.
When the interview's done, give me:
1. A short "working with me" note, based only on what I said. Don't pad it with things I didn't tell you. Remember it for all our future chats.
2. The same note again as plain text I can paste into Settings, Profile.
3. The three jobs you could realistically take off my plate this week, one line each, most annoying first.
4. One thing to try today that takes under five minutes.
Rules: British English, no jargon, no enthusiasm about how great my answers are. If I go quiet, move on.Say you’re a self-employed plasterer. Your six answers might be, in full: “Dave”, “plastering, quoting, chasing invoices”, “paperwork”, “short”, “invoices deffo”, “no”.
That’s enough. From six scraps Claude drafts a working profile of you, saves it, and hands you a shortlist of jobs it can take over. Probably starting with the invoice chasing, Dave.
The bit nobody tells you: this prompt quietly does the job the settings screens exist for. The profile page, the “how should Claude respond” box, all of it gathered in a conversation instead. That’s the tool working for you, which was always the deal.
Step 3: Flip two switches (3 minutes)
The one trip to Settings you can’t delegate, because Claude can’t flip its own toggles.
- Click your initials, then Settings.
- Find the memory option and check it’s on.
- Check search and reference chats is on.
They often already are, in which case your step 2 notes are saved and you can shut the window and never go back. If a toggle isn’t exactly where I’ve said, don’t spiral. Menus move. It’ll be nearby.
The bit nobody tells you: memory is what makes step 2 permanent. Without it, that lovely note evaporates when the chat ends and next week you’re a stranger again.
That’s it. No, really
You now have an account, an assistant that knows who you are and what you hate doing, a shortlist of jobs it’s offered to take over, and settings that make it stick.
Everything else (the desktop app, voice mode, Projects) is genuinely optional and the defaults are good. Add nothing until you feel the gap. “I wish it opened faster” is the day you get the desktop app. Let the wishes arrive first.
The small print
Ten minutes of setup won’t make you good at asking. That comes from use: real emails, real quotes, real Tuesday problems, and being willing to say “no, again, shorter”.
The interview only knows what you told it. Six lazy answers make a sketch, not a portrait. It sharpens every week you use it, and you never have to go back and do it “properly”.
This isn’t secretly the full setup. I’ve skipped real settings on purpose because they’re not day-one material. You’re at 80%, and 80% today beats 100% never.
The one move
Paste the step 2 prompt. Skip the door formalities and the toggles if you must, and just have the interview. That single copy and paste is why this guide exists.
That’s Claude set up for you in ten minutes. The Claude Kickstart is the proper version: five real jobs handed over, a playbook for your actual trade, and Claude sounding like you. £47, one weekend.