Claude Cowork: The Setup Guide I Wish I'd Had on Day One

I made the mistake almost everyone makes with Cowork the first time. I opened it, pointed it at my Downloads folder, typed "clean this up," and waited. What came back was fine. Not bad. Just fine — the kind of result that makes you think "okay, neat trick" and close the tab instead of "I need to use this every day." The problem wasn't Cowork. It was that I was using it exactly like Claude Chat — vague instruction, hope for the best — except Cowork isn't built for that interaction style at all....