Eight Newer Claude Features, Tried on Real Work · Lesson 7 of 8

Put a weekly job on a schedule, with sources

20 minutes. Works on: paid plans (Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise). Scheduled tasks run in Claude Cowork. On Team plans, your owner controls Cowork.

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Some jobs aren't hard, they're just every week. Check what changed in your trade. Look for new rebates the customers will ask about. See if the utility announced anything. Each one takes fifteen minutes you never quite find.

Claude can now do a job like that on a schedule, every Monday at 6 AM, whether or not your computer is on, and have it waiting for you. This lesson sets up one weekly job, and shows you how to check what it found before you rely on it.

• February 25, 2026: Anthropic added scheduled tasks to Claude Cowork, recurring or on demand.
• October 6, 2026: on Pro and Max plans, new Cowork tasks run in the cloud, on Anthropic's servers.

Anthropic says scheduled tasks are on all paid plans, and that they "run remotely," so they keep their schedule "even when your computer is asleep or the Claude Desktop app is closed." The exception: a task that needs files or apps on your computer runs on your computer.

There are two ways, depending on what your screen shows.

If you have the new combined Claude (rolling out to Pro and Max): describe the job and how often in any conversation, answer Claude's questions, review it, and click Schedule.

In Cowork:

• Click Scheduled in the left sidebar.
• Click New task.
• Choose Create with Claude (it asks you questions) or Set up manually.
• Manually, you fill in a name, the instructions, the approval mode, how often (hourly, daily, weekly, on weekdays, or manually), and optionally a model and a folder. Then Save.

From Scheduled you can see upcoming and past runs, edit a task, pause it, resume it, delete it, or run it right now with Run a task on demand.

Your first scheduled job should only read and report. It runs when you're not watching, so it should never send, buy, delete or post anything.

A great first one needs no connections to your other tools at all: a weekly check on your trade and your town. Claude searches the web, and Anthropic says web search answers include citations, so every item comes with a link you can check.

At Comfort Zone, Tina's instructions were:

> Every Monday at 6 AM: search the web for news from the past 7 days that matters to a 20-person heating and air conditioning company in our state. Look for new rules or permits, rebates and utility programs customers may ask about, product recalls, and supplier news. Give me no more than five items. For each: one line on what happened, one line on why it matters to us, and a link to the source. If there's nothing new, say "Nothing new this week." Don't do anything else.

Notice the limits: five items, a link for each, and "don't do anything else."

A summary is only as good as what it read. For the first month:

• Open three of the links. Is the source real, recent and the kind of place you'd trust (a government site, the utility, the manufacturer)?
• Check one claim against its source. Does the source actually say that?
• Act only on what you checked. If an item says a rebate changed, confirm it on the program's own page before you tell a customer.

Some questions deserve more than a quick search. Research has Claude run several searches that build on each other before it answers.

• Plans: Anthropic says Research is on paid plans (Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise), on the web, the desktop app and the phone app.
• To start: click + in the message box, then Research. Web search must be on. (With the new combined Claude, you may not see a separate web search switch; Anthropic says Claude searches when it helps.)
• It uses more of your usage than a normal chat, and Anthropic says it now runs on its Opus 5.5 model.
• It can use connected tools, such as your Google email and documents, without asking each time. Turn off connections it doesn't need for the question.

A good Research question for a small business: "Compare the warranty terms of the three furnace brands we install: length, what's covered, and registration deadlines. Use the manufacturers' own pages and link each one." Then do the same three checks as above.

Anthropic's own guide says scheduled tasks count toward your usage limits, and suggests you "turn off any you no longer need." Put a reminder on your calendar 30 days out: is this task still worth reading? If not, pause it or delete it.

Your next scheduled job: if you built the Monday-morning summary in [Connect Your AI to Your Business Tools](/courses/connect-your-ai), that's the natural next one. Keep it read-only. And for bigger hand-offs, [Hand Off a Whole Job with Cowork](/courses/cowork-hand-off-a-job) shows how to write the brief.

• Write your weekly check: your trade, your area, five items at most, a link for each, "don't do anything else."
• Set it up as a weekly scheduled task.
• Run it once now with Run a task on demand.
• Open three of its links and check one claim against its source.
• Put a reminder on your calendar for 30 days from now: keep it, change it or turn it off.

Check it worked

• You have one scheduled task that only reads and reports.
• Every item in its first run had a source link, and the one claim you checked matched its source.
• You know where to pause or delete it.

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Next: when to use more effort, how to make your usage last, and your card of tricks to keep.

→ Lesson 8: Pick the right gear and make your usage last

Previous: Talk to it from the truck · Next: Pick the right gear and make your usage last