Set a task once and Claude Cowork runs it on repeat. Your Monday briefing, your invoice chasers, your content ideas. All done before you open your laptop.
by Abi Odedeyi · CodeFreeIQ
No code~13 min setupRuns while you sleep
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What is a scheduled task?
Most people treat Claude Cowork like a chat. You open it, you ask for something, it does the work, you close it. Useful, but you still have to show up and start it every single time.
A scheduled task changes that. Think of Cowork less like a chat box and more like a personal assistant who actually does the work. You hand over a job once, tell it when to run, and it turns up on its own. Every Monday at 7am, every Friday at 5pm, every morning. You do nothing.
What you need first.
Before you set anything up, 3 things need to be true:
1
The Cowork desktop app
Scheduled tasks live in the desktop app, not the browser. Download it and sign in.
2
A paid Claude plan
Scheduling is a paid feature. If you're on the free tier you won't see the Scheduled option.
3
Your computer switched on
The task runs on your machine, so it needs to be awake at the scheduled time. A task set for 7am won't fire if the laptop is shut.
The 3 steps.
1
Open Cowork and go to Scheduled
In the desktop app, find the Scheduled tab. This is where your recurring tasks live. Click to add a new one.
2
Fill in the 4 fields
Name, description, prompt, and frequency. The prompt is the one that matters. This is the exact instruction Cowork runs every time, so write it like you're briefing a real assistant.
3
Save, then Run now
Save the task, then hit Run now once to test it. Check the output. If it's right, you're done. It'll keep running on your schedule from here.
A prompt you can drop straight inEvery Monday at 7am, pull my calendar for the week ahead and my unread emails from the weekend. Write me a short briefing: my 3 biggest meetings, anything urgent that needs a reply, and one thing I said I'd follow up on last week. Keep it under 200 words and put the urgent items at the top.
5 things to put on repeat.
Monday briefing
Your week and weekend inbox, summarised before you sit down.
Invoice chaser
Flag overdue invoices and draft the follow-up email for you.
Content ideas
Five fresh post ideas from your niche, waiting every morning.
Calendar prep
Every meeting for tomorrow, with a quick brief on each.
End-of-day wrap
At 5pm, a recap of what got done, what slipped, and what tomorrow needs. You close the laptop knowing nothing's dropped.
The one mistake to avoidVague in, useless out. "Summarise my emails" gets you a vague summary. Tell it exactly what you want: which emails, what to pull out, how long, what order. A sharp prompt runs sharp every single time. A lazy one wastes the run.
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Don't want to set it up yourself?
Tell me the jobs eating your week. We hop on a call, and you walk away with your AI running them on repeat, without touching any tech.
by Abi Odedeyi · CodeFreeIQ
