Eight Newer Claude Features, Tried on Real Work · Lesson 8 of 8

Pick the right gear and make your usage last

15 minutes. Works on: all plans for the usage habits. The model and effort choices you see depend on your plan; Anthropic's pages confirm the usage meter in Settings > Usage for paid plans.

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Two questions come up once people use Claude every day. "Should I be using a different model for this?" And "why did I run out on a Wednesday?"

They're the same question, really. Claude has gears. A low gear is quick and light. A high gear is slower, more careful, and uses more of your allowance. Most of the day, the default is right. This lesson shows you when to shift, how to make your usage go further, and then a short list of newer things worth knowing about. It ends with your one-page card of the tricks you'll keep.

The gears: model, effort and thinking

Anthropic's help page says the menu next to the send button controls three things:

  • The model. Click the model's name to change it, or More models for others.
  • Effort. How much thinking Claude puts into a reply. The levels are Low, Medium, High, Extra high and Max (not every model has every level). Anthropic says Low and Medium "stretch your usage further," and High "offers the best overall balance of quality and speed." Higher effort means more thorough answers that take longer and use more.
  • Thinking. On some models you can switch extended thinking on or off. On the newest models, Anthropic says it's always on.

What's new this fall:

  • September 22, 2026: Claude Opus 5.5, the first model in Anthropic's new Claude 5.5 family. With it, Anthropic raised the five-hour usage limits on Pro, Max, Team and seat-based Enterprise plans.
  • September 28, 2026: Claude Sonnet 5.5, a faster, lower-cost model that Anthropic says is strongest at well-scoped everyday tasks and at polished documents, slides and spreadsheets. In the Claude apps, its default effort is Medium.

Anthropic says its Fable models are on paid plans only. It doesn't say clearly which models each plan can pick, so check your own menu. If your plan shows fewer choices, that's fine; everything in this course works with the default.

When to shift

Stay on the default (usually Medium) for: emails, summaries, rewrites, flyers, checklists, everyday questions. That's most of what an office does.

Shift up (High, or a bigger model) for: a tricky schedule with a lot of rules, a long document you need to get exactly right, a decision with several moving parts, or a mini app that keeps breaking.

Shift down (Low) for: quick lookups and short rewrites when you're near your limit.

You can change gears in the middle of a chat. Anthropic says the change applies from Claude's next reply.

Make your usage last

Your usage depends on how long your messages and chats are, how big your files are, which tools you use (Research and web search use more), which model and effort you pick, and how much work you hand off. On the free plan, Anthropic says there's a session limit that resets every five hours. On paid plans, Settings > Usage shows your current five-hour session and your weekly limits.

Habits that help, from Anthropic's own advice:

  • Plan before you type. Know what you want before you start the chat.
  • Be specific. One clear request beats five vague ones.
  • Batch related questions into one message.
  • Read your message before you send it.
  • Put files you reuse in a Project. Anthropic says Project content is cached and "counts less against your limits when reused."

And one from Anthropic's Cowork guidance: start a new conversation for unrelated work. A long chat carries everything that came before it.

Worth knowing about (not taught here)

A few more newer things, so you recognize them when you see them. None needs action today.

  • Claude in Chrome (paid plans, beta in the Chrome side panel). Claude can read, click, type and fill in forms in your Chrome browser. Anthropic's own page says it "is still risky," and recommends against using it for financial, legal or medical accounts and work accounts with sensitive data. If you try it, start with reading only, and keep it on the mode where you approve each action. On Team plans it's on by default, and your owner can turn it off.
  • Claude Tag in Slack (Team and Enterprise, beta, June 23, 2026). People in your Slack channels can tag @Claude and hand it a task. Your owner sets it up and sets a monthly spending limit.
  • Claude Duet (announced October 21, 2026). A separate app where Claude checks your connected apps every few hours, sends a morning brief, and works on tasks you hand it. It's a research preview with a waitlist, starting with Pro and Max subscribers in the US. Anthropic says it asks before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, and that it "might misread a thread or miscalibrate what's urgent." Worth watching. Not worth handing your business to yet.
  • Your monthly recap (free, Pro and Max, beta). Settings > Reflect shows what you used Claude for this month. It needs memory on. A good, quick way to see which tricks you actually use.
Do this now
  • Open the model menu next to the send button. Write down your model and your default effort.
  • Pick one harder job you really have this week. Run it at the default effort, then again at High. Was the second answer worth the extra wait? (If your plan doesn't show effort levels, skip this step.)
  • On a paid plan, open Settings > Usage and note when your session resets.
  • Fill in the My Claude Tricks Card: for each of the eight lessons, whether your plan has it, whether you'll keep using it, and your first job for it.
  • Pin the card where you'll see it, and share it with one coworker.

Check it worked

  • You know where the model and effort menu is, and what your default is.
  • You've got one example of a job where more effort was, or wasn't, worth it.
  • Your card lists at least three tricks you'll use next week.

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You're done

Eight features, eight small jobs. You don't need all of them. Keep the three that saved you time this week, and come back to the others when a job calls for one.

Three rules still ride along: company work in a company account, leave the person out, and a person checks anything that goes to a customer or touches money.

Where to go next:

  • [Claude for Your Team](/courses/claude-for-your-team) to set Claude up properly for everyone in your business.
  • [Hand Off a Whole Job with Cowork](/courses/cowork-hand-off-a-job) when a weekly job deserves a full hand-off.
  • [Save Your Best Instructions: Projects, GPTs and Skills](/courses/reusable-instructions) to save the prompts your team uses most.
  • [Connect Your AI to Your Business Tools](/courses/connect-your-ai) to let Claude read your email, calendar and files, safely.
  • The [Tips](/tips) page for a new prompting habit each day.

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