Four things, and they take about ten minutes together. Add your instructions in Settings, so Claude knows how to work with you and what you're working on. Set your voice, so it writes more like you. Turn off the model-training toggle in Privacy, so your chats stay yours. And switch all the capabilities on — web search, file creation, the lot — because that's what makes Claude genuinely useful rather than just a chat box.

Yes — it's the one setting Kirsty recommends changing first. You'll find it under Settings, then Privacy. Turned off, it means your chats — your clients, your business — aren't used to train the AI. Leave Location on though: that one just lets Claude give you sensible local answers.

Start with Sonnet and don't overthink it. It's the everyday workhorse, it's the free default, and it's all you need to begin. Opus is the heavy-lifter for complex thinking, and Haiku is the quick one. There's a small dropdown at the top of any chat where you pick — but honestly, Sonnet is plenty.

A Chat is a single conversation: open it, talk, you're done — perfect for one-off jobs, and it's all the live courses need. A Project is a workspace that remembers: you give it instructions and files once, and every chat inside works from that shared context. You don't need Projects yet — they come into their own in the content-system course, and Kirsty walks you through them there.

About ten minutes, and you don't need to pay anything to do it. Nine short screens cover the free plan, the settings that matter, the privacy toggle, capabilities, picking a model, and the difference between a Chat and a Project. Ten minutes now saves you hours later — and if anything doesn't behave the way it's described, Kirsty's inbox is on the final screen.