Claude Projects — the feature most beginners ignore (but shouldn't)

Projects are how you stop repeating yourself in every chat. Set up your context once, and every conversation starts with Claude already knowing your work.

What a Project is

A Project is a Claude conversation container with two superpowers: persistent instructions (a system prompt that applies to every chat in the project) and a knowledge base (files Claude can reference without you re-uploading them).

Why this changes everything

Without a Project, you re-explain who you are, what tone you want, what your business is, and what you're working on at the start of every chat. Multiply that by 50 chats a week and you can see the problem.

With a Project, Claude already knows. You just type the actual question.

Setting up your first Project (5 minutes)

1. In claude.ai, click Projects in the sidebar.
2. Click New Project. Name it after the area of life or work it serves.
3. Add Custom instructions — this is the system prompt for every chat in this Project.
4. Upload knowledge files — anything Claude should always have access to.

The custom instructions template that works

Who I am: [name, role, location, anything relevant]
What I'm working on: [project, business, course, area of life]
How I want you to respond:
- [tone — direct/warm/formal/casual]
- [length default — short/medium/comprehensive]
- [format — prose/bullets/tables]
- [language — English/Norwegian/mix]
What to avoid:
- [things you find annoying — over-apologising, hedging, unnecessary disclaimers, emoji, etc.]

Three Projects everyone should have

1. Personal life ops

Your context: name, family, location, recurring tasks, calendar quirks. Knowledge: any reference docs you keep coming back to.

2. Work / main job

Your context: role, team, tools, how things work. Knowledge: style guide, key documents, brand voice, examples of your best work.

3. A specific project / business

Your context: what the project is, who the audience is, what's been done. Knowledge: brief, plans, notes, relevant data.

What goes in the knowledge base?

• Style guides, brand voice docs
• Org charts or "who's who" lists
• Glossaries of internal terms
• Example documents you want it to imitate
• Anything you'd otherwise paste into every chat

What does not belong

• Sensitive secrets (API keys, passwords)
• Files that change daily — those should be uploaded per-chat
• Massive corpora — Projects have storage limits; pick the highest-value 5-15 files

What's next

Once your Projects are set up, level up your prompts. Next: 30 Claude prompts every teacher should steal.