At most one email a week. Unfollow anytime with one click.
Transcript
The full narration of this video. The current sentence is highlighted while the video plays; click any sentence to jump there.
Show transcript
Introduction
Hi, and welcome back to Claude from Zero to Expert. After Google Drive, we now connect the two apps we open first every morning: Gmail and Google Calendar. In this episode we ask Claude to summarize the inbox, prepare reply drafts, find meeting times, and check schedule conflicts. All with one rule: Claude prepares, you decide.
Step 1: Dewi's morning: a piled-up inbox
Monday morning, eight o'clock. Dewi, operations manager at Maju Bersama Co., opens Gmail. On screen is part of her inbox: customers, suppliers, a courier, the director, and a newsletter. One email from Ms. Sari, the administrator at Harapan Junior High, looks important. But from the list alone, Dewi can't tell how urgent it is. Once she opens it, it turns out school exams start Thursday, while the delivery is scheduled for Friday. Ms. Sari asks for the delivery to arrive by Wednesday afternoon at the latest. Emails like this sink easily. Only five are visible on screen, but there have been about thirty since Friday afternoon. Reading them all one by one could take almost an hour. Let's look at the numbers. Thirty-one emails have come in since Friday afternoon, from customers and suppliers to newsletters. The calendar already has six events this week, and the director wants one more meeting. The result: almost an hour goes into reading and sorting before a single task is done. Let's cut that time down with Claude.
Step 2: Summarizing the inbox
Instead of reading one by one, Dewi asks Claude for a summary. Her request has four parts. First, the task: summarize my incoming email. Second, the data range: from Friday at five in the afternoon until now. Newsletters and promotions are excluded so the summary isn't full of unimportant things. Third, the format: three groups, urgent, needs reply, and info only, with one line per email. Fourth, the limits: don't send, delete, or label anything. For a summary, Claude only needs to read. Dewi types that request into Claude. Gmail is already connected through the connector. Claude searches for emails in the requested time range. The gray line shows the Gmail tool is in use. Thirty-one emails are read, and six newsletters are skipped as requested. The result: two urgent emails at the top, Ms. Sari's request and the task from Mr. Wahyu. Then five emails that need a reply, and eighteen that are just for information. Dewi now knows where to start. But remember, a summary helps set priorities. She still opens the urgent emails and reads them in full before acting.
Step 3: Preparing reply drafts
After checking with the courier, Dewi knows the facts: the delivery can leave Wednesday at two in the afternoon, at no extra cost. Those are the facts she gives Claude, along with the tone she wants. Claude writes a polite, brief draft. Notice the heading: draft, not sent. Claude only uses Dewi's facts and doesn't invent promises of its own. Dewi doesn't want to share the courier's number with customers. She asks that confirmations go through her instead. Claude adjusts the closing line. The draft is ready to copy into Gmail, read once more, and then sent by Dewi herself. Notice how the roles are split. Claude does the time-consuming writing, while Dewi holds the facts, the policy, and the decision to send. This example gives us four rules for reply drafts. First, the facts come from you. Dates, prices, and promises must never be guessed by Claude. Second, it's always a draft. Say it clearly in your request: don't send yet. Some connectors may be able to save drafts directly in Gmail; check Anthropic's official page for the latest abilities. Third, read before sending. Check the recipient's name, the dates, and the numbers. Fourth, you press the send button. An email that's been sent can't be taken back, so this decision stays in human hands.
Step 4: Finding meeting times in the calendar
The second urgent email is from Mr. Wahyu: set up a one-hour supplier review meeting this week. Here is Dewi's calendar for this week, Monday to Friday. There's a warehouse briefing, a store visit, a stock count, a sales team meeting, a delivery to receive, and the weekly report. Finding a free gap by hand is tiring. Dewi asks Claude to find two free one-hour slots, between nine and four, and not on Thursday, because that day she's busy receiving a delivery. Claude reads this week's calendar through the Google Calendar connector. It offers two options: Tuesday at ten, or Wednesday at eleven. Notice its honest note: Claude can only see Dewi's calendar. Mr. Wahyu's availability still needs confirming. Dewi picks Tuesday and asks for a proposed event, without inviting anyone yet. Creating an event is a write action, so Claude asks for approval, and Dewi approves. The tool line records that this action was approved by Dewi. Before looking at the result, understand four things about the calendar connector. First, Claude sees your calendar, plus calendars that are actually shared with you. Coworkers' calendars that aren't shared stay invisible. Second, watch the time zone, especially for online meetings with colleagues in other cities or countries. Third, creating an event is a write action. That's why Claude asked for approval first. Fourth, inviting attendees is the same as sending. Other people are notified right away, so make sure the time and title are right. Back to the calendar. A new green box appears on Tuesday at ten: the supplier review, still marked as proposed. Dewi only needs to confirm with Mr. Wahyu. If he agrees, the title is changed and the invitation is sent. That step, too, is Dewi's decision.
Step 5: Email and calendar working together
Connectors really shine when two apps are used together. Dewi receives an invitation to a stationery expo and asks: does the date clash with my schedule? Claude first finds the invitation email in Gmail. Then it opens the calendar on the same date. The result: the expo on Thursday clashes with receiving a delivery. Claude offers two ways out, and offers a draft message rather than sending one straight away. Dewi picks the second option and asks for a draft for Andi, with the same instruction: don't send it. The draft is clear: the time, the place, the quantity, and a reminder to count the reams. Dewi copies it into the office messaging app. Two apps, one conversation, and Dewi stays in control. Before we finish, remember these four rules. First, sending, deleting, and inviting always wait for your approval. Second, recheck dates, times, and recipient names. A single wrong digit can make guests show up on the wrong day. Third, an inbox often holds sensitive data such as payslips or customer data. Don't ask Claude to process it unless you need to. Fourth, a summary is no substitute for reading important emails. The screens in this video are simulations, and menu names may differ slightly because Claude is updated often.
Done!
We've summarized the inbox into three groups, prepared a reply draft we send ourselves, found a meeting slot in the calendar, and checked a schedule conflict from an invitation email. The more apps you connect, the more important it is to understand permissions. In the next episode we focus on security and data access permissions. See you there!
Practice exercises
Try these on your own after watching to lock in what you learned.
Ask for a summary of your inbox since yesterday afternoon in three groups
Pick one important email, ask for a reply draft, then edit and send it yourself
Ask Claude to find two one-hour meeting slots this week and check them in your calendar
Ask the class material
Type a question or keyword; we find the part of this episode that explains it and jump the video there.
My notes
Notes are saved with the current video time and are only visible to you.
Questions & answers
Stuck on a step? Ask here; the instructor and other learners can answer.
No questions yet.
Your instructor
Cerdas Inovasi Digital Team
Software developers, BIM & 3D engineers, and AI practitioners
53 video classes1,290 episodes
We build software, BIM models, games and AI automations for clients every day, and turn that hands-on work into step-by-step classes: every step is shown on screen and comes with a PDF guide you can keep.
