How I AIClaude Code for product managers: research, writing, context libraries, custom to-do system, more
CHAPTERS
Teresa Torres’ background and why she’s all-in on Claude Code
Teresa Torres (Continuous Discovery Habits) explains how her AI usage evolved from web chat tools into Claude, then into Claude Code inside VS Code. The key shift is treating Claude like a pair-programming partner for non-coding work too.
Escaping Trello lock-in: building a personal task system with Claude
Teresa shares the motivation behind creating her own task management workflow: heavy note-taking and fear of losing or locking away her data in Trello. Moving tasks into a text-first system makes them searchable, portable, and AI-actionable.
Demo: the /today slash command that generates her daily plan
Teresa demonstrates a custom Claude Code slash command that compiles her day automatically. It creates a “today” file, pulls in due/overdue tasks, ongoing ideas, and research digest items—turning a daily ritual into a one-command workflow.
Under the hood: Markdown + Obsidian as the task database
The system is built on plain Markdown files stored in Obsidian, where each task has structured YAML front matter. Claude (and scripts) can reliably query these files by due date, type, and tags, enabling fast automation without a GUI.
Creating a new task in seconds (and why speed matters)
Teresa shows how she creates a new task by simply typing an instruction to Claude while working in the terminal. The benefit is avoiding slow, click-heavy interfaces and capturing tasks in the same environment where she’s already operating.
Claude-driven tagging and flexible views (e.g., sales pipeline on demand)
A major advantage of Teresa’s system is that Claude handles task tagging, making it easy to generate dynamic views like a sales pipeline without manual upkeep. She maintains a tag taxonomy with Claude to keep the system consistent over time.
Embedding work notes inside tasks for powerful retrieval
Teresa keeps in-progress notes directly inside the task file, including bugs and partial work state. This creates a searchable “work journal,” and Claude helps recover details even when she only vaguely remembers what she wrote.
Daily automated research digest: turning an academic firehose into a routine
Teresa explains a workflow that delivers a daily research digest into her task list. She scans titles/abstracts, manually downloads a few PDFs, and gets high-quality method-focused summaries the next day.
How the research plugin works: scripts, cron jobs, and summarization agents
She built the research system as a plugin backed by two Python scripts running on cron schedules. One gathers new papers from sources; the other detects newly saved PDFs and triggers Claude Code agents to produce structured summaries.
Summaries that emphasize rigor: methods, measures, and effect sizes
Teresa intentionally designed her summarization prompt to focus on the parts that matter for judging research quality. This lets her quickly spot weak measurement choices and decide whether a paper is credible or useful.
Extending the idea: competitive analysis and other information digests
Beyond academic research, Teresa describes using Claude to “Google for her” and generate structured reports like competitive analyses. She also imagines similar digests for social content (e.g., LinkedIn), though API access is a constraint.
Context libraries: building small, reusable files for ‘lazy prompting’
Teresa maintains an “LLM context” vault: many small, focused Markdown files covering business and personal context, plus a writing style guide. She learned that too much context hurts performance, so she uses indexes to load only what’s needed.
Claude as a writing partner: research checks, critique, hooks, and typos
Teresa doesn’t want to automate her writing, but uses Claude heavily for augmentation: validating claims, strengthening hooks, critiquing sections, and cleaning up errors. The custom style guide makes feedback specific and aligned to her voice.
Lightning round: tool stack, feature wishes, and what to do when Claude gets stuck
Teresa shares she mostly sticks with Claude Code + VS Code rather than chasing new tools like Cursor. When Claude derails, she resets with /clear and relies on documentation/context files to restart without re-explaining everything.
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome