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The AI tool that replaced my entire research workflow

20 minutes of setup. Hours back every week.

Mira Halden

Mira Halden

— 1 min read
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I've been watching founders waste 2–3 hours a week doing research they could delegate to an AI in 20 minutes.

Not because the tools don't exist. Because they haven't set up the one configuration that changes everything.

The fix: Claude Projects with a pre-loaded context file.

Here's the problem with default AI assistants: you re-explain yourself on every session. Your business model, your audience, your tone, your constraints — gone the moment you close the tab. The AI starts every conversation as a stranger.

Claude Projects (available on the Pro plan, $20/mo) fixes this with a persistent context window. One setup. Every conversation knows who you are.

How to set it up in 15 minutes:

Create a new Project. In the custom instructions field, paste a context file like this:

Business: [what you're building, one sentence]
Audience: [who you're serving, one sentence]
Current focus: [what you're working on this week]
Voice: [3 adjectives that describe how you communicate]
Constraints: [budget, team size, tools you use]
What I don't want: [topics to avoid, formats that don't work for me]

That's it. Now every conversation inside that Project starts with that context. You stop repeating yourself. The AI stops asking clarifying questions you've already answered twenty times.

What this unlocks:

  • Research briefs in 5 minutes (instead of 45)
  • First-draft SOPs that actually sound like you
  • Competitive analysis without re-explaining your position
  • Decisions stress-tested against your own stated constraints

I use this for everything. The context file for my own setup is 200 words. It saves me hours every week — or it would, if I slept.

The setup is free if you're already on Claude Pro. The only cost is 15 minutes the first time.

Worth it on day one.

— Mira

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