14-DAY SELF-STUDY

14 days
to Claude fluency

Thirty minutes a day for two weeks. Seven hours total. By day 14 you're comfortable enough to show a colleague. Day-by-day: theme, tasks, a checkpoint, and a pointer to the relevant deep dive.

30 min/day 14 days 7 hours total

The 90-minute workshop shows you the three Claudes — Code, Design, Cowork — and gets your hands on each one. What locks the knowledge in is reps. This 14-day path is built around a realistic time budget: half an hour a day, worked backwards from the point where an executive can drop Claude into their actual job.

Each day has a theme, three or four concrete tasks, a checkpoint, and a link to the deep-dive page that covers the territory. I'd suggest running them in order, but the design tolerates shuffling if a week gets ugly. Day 14 is deliberately about teaching someone else — you don't really know it until you can explain it.

Day 1 · Claude Desktop basics

Theme: Open the app, talk to it in the Chat tab, get a feel for the conversation.

  • Install Claude Desktop and sign in
  • Open the Chat tab. Ask about one decision you have on your plate this week
  • Push back three times: "go deeper," "why do you say that?", then one more round
  • Optional: save the conversation as a note to your future self
Checkpoint. Claude Desktop is open and you've had a conversation of at least three turns.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 2 · Max plan setup and usage

Theme: If you're using it for work, you need Max. Learn how to read your own usage.

  • Subscribe to Max (or confirm you're on it)
  • Open the usage dashboard. Note when your weekly window resets
  • Learn what happens at the rate limit (the app degrades to a lower model, it doesn't cut you off)
  • Optional: think about whether a shared team plan makes sense
Checkpoint. You can answer "how much usage do I have left this week?" in three seconds.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 3 · Code tab, first touch (1)

Theme: See Claude Code Desktop generate a real file on your disk.

  • Make an empty folder, open it in Claude Code Desktop
  • Ask: "Make me a Hello World text file"
  • Open Finder and confirm the file is actually there
  • Ask for a tweak — greeting in Japanese, for example
Checkpoint. You've seen Claude create and edit a real local file.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 4 · Code tab, first touch (2)

Theme: Plan mode and Visual diff — the safe way to delegate.

  • Turn Plan mode on. Ask for a task, but have the plan shown first
  • Push back on the plan at least once: "no, not that, this instead"
  • Use Visual diff to review before you Approve
  • Optional: try Reject. Make it redo the work
Checkpoint. The rhythm — plan, then code, then diff — feels natural.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 5 · API keys, basics

Theme: Build the muscle memory for not leaking keys.

  • Create a .env file in a project folder
  • Make sure .gitignore covers .env. If not, add it
  • Put a dummy key in. Ask Claude "read this value" to verify the flow
  • Optional: before swapping in a real key, check git history — make sure .env was never committed
Checkpoint. "Keys never go in code" is a habit now, not a rule you have to remember.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 6 · API keys, organizational

Theme: From your laptop to the company. Connect to internal rules.

  • Put one test secret into 1Password or AWS Secrets Manager
  • Read it from Claude Code via environment variables — no hardcoding
  • Reread MIXI's secret-handling rules (IT + Legal) with this context in mind
  • Optional: draft a five-item checklist for your team
Checkpoint. You can articulate the minimum bar for moving from personal testing to production.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 7 · Hook up one MCP server

Theme: Give Claude its first connection to external data.

  • Connect the Google Drive MCP server to Claude Desktop
  • Find a file in Drive, have Claude summarize it
  • Confirm that files you don't have access to stay invisible
  • Optional: check the access log. What got recorded?
Checkpoint. Claude can read Drive files and hand back a summary.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 8 · Add a second MCP server

Theme: Two sources. Now you can do the thing neither one does alone.

  • Connect the Slack MCP server
  • Summarize the last week in a specific channel
  • Now ask across both: "summarize the discussion, using the attached docs as context"
  • Optional: list three recurring tasks you'd like to automate this way
Checkpoint. One prompt pulls from both MCP servers and the answer makes sense.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 9 · One deck in Claude Design

Theme: Feel what "draft in three minutes" is like. Export to PPTX.

  • Open claude.ai/design
  • Ask for a 10-slide pitch deck
  • Export as PPTX, open in PowerPoint or Keynote
  • Optional: replace the headlines with your own phrasing
Checkpoint. Ten slides of a starting draft exist, five minutes after you hit send.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 10 · Two more decks

Theme: Get the reps in. Don't rebuild standard formats.

  • Generate a monthly review deck
  • Then generate a one-pager
  • Time both. Together they should come in under ten minutes
  • Optional: save the voice you liked as a reusable prompt
Checkpoint. "I build the deck myself" has quietly turned into "Claude builds the bones, I edit."

Reference: related deep dive

Day 11 · First pass at Cowork

Theme: Not Chat, not Code — the third workspace.

  • Open the Cowork tab in Claude Desktop
  • Drop in a PDF — a contract, quarterly results, a report
  • Ask for the top five points and the decisions an exec would need to make
  • Optional: three follow-up questions, each going deeper
Checkpoint. You've worked with Claude on a PDF and it felt like collaboration, not search.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 12 · Automate one task in Cowork

Theme: Just one. Make one weekly thing easier.

  • Connect Gmail and Drive to Cowork
  • Build a flow that drafts your weekly brief
  • Run it once. Time how long the edits take
  • Optional: if it's acceptable, put it on your Friday calendar
Checkpoint. You can see at least 30 minutes a week coming back to you.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 13 · Save an hour of your own time

Theme: Audit your week. Pick one thing to hand off.

  • Write out your last week in hours
  • Pick three candidates for "Claude could do this faster"
  • Run one of them. Measure the time saved
  • Optional: note what you did with that hour
Checkpoint. "Before Claude / after Claude" is a real, measurable number in your own schedule — and it's at least an hour.

Reference: related deep dive

Day 14 · Teach it

Theme: 30 minutes explaining it to someone else. That's when it locks in.

  • Grab a colleague or report. Book 30 minutes
  • Show them Chat, Code, and Cowork with a live example in each
  • Get at least three questions out of them. Note anything you can't answer
  • Optional: take those gaps back to Claude afterwards and close them
Checkpoint. You can teach Claude in 30 minutes. That's the real definition of "fluent."

Reference: none

After day 14

Where you should be:

  • You can hand any document — contract, financials, deck — to Claude and get a useful opinion back
  • You can build small local-file automations on your own
  • You can explain Claude usage to other execs at MIXI

From here, 50 exec prompts and the Cowork deep research work best as references you dip into when the need comes up.

Next steps. Pick one task per week that used to eat an hour and see if Claude can take a chunk of it. Track the delta for a month. That's how the habit becomes a number you can show someone.
Last verified: 2026-04-22
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