Claude Can Do Your Chores

Not Just Websites

Everything you’ve learned so far works for something much more everyday: grunt work.

• Tidying up a messy spreadsheet.
• Merging ten PDFs into one.
• Shrinking a hundred photos so they fit in an email.
• Renaming a folder full of files that are called IMG_4021.

The kind of boring, fiddly job that eats an afternoon. Claude can do most of them in minutes.

The Secret: Python Libraries

Claude doesn’t open Excel and click around like you would. Instead, it writes a small Python program (Python is a programming language that’s great for this kind of work) that does the job for you.

And it doesn’t write it from scratch. For almost every kind of file, someone has already built a free library (a ready-made toolkit for one kind of job), just like the packages you met in the website part:

You don’t need to remember these names. That’s the point of the next section.

The Recipe

Here’s the pattern that works for almost any chore:

1. Put the files in a folder, and open Claude there (right-click, Open in Terminal, claude).
2. Ask Claude to research the best Python libraries for the job. Don’t let it start yet.
3. Pick one with its help. Ask why it recommends it.
4. Tell it to do the job using that library, saving the results as new files.
5. Open the results and check them. “Done” still means “go look”.

It’s the same loop as building a website, just smaller: describe, plan, build, check.

Research first, then build. Asking which tool fits before starting gives much better results than letting Claude grab the first thing it thinks of.

Step 2 in Practice

Switch to plan mode (Shift+Tab) and ask:

I need to clean up the Excel file in this folder: remove duplicate rows, fix the dates, and add a total for each client. Research the best Python libraries for this. Compare two or three in simple words and recommend one. Don't change anything yet.

Claude looks into the options, and comes back with something like: “openpyxl is best here because it keeps your formatting, pandas is great for heavy number crunching but can lose styles…”

Then you decide, and let it go.

The Golden Rule: Protect Your Originals

A program can change a hundred files in a second. That’s the magic, and also the danger. So always:

Never let Claude change your original files. Results go into a separate output folder.

Just say it every time, or better, put it in the folder’s CLAUDE.md:

Add to CLAUDE.md: never change or delete the original files. Always save results as new files in an "output" folder.

And for extra safety, keep a copy of anything precious somewhere else before you start.

You Need Python Installed

Python doesn’t come with Windows. Install it once, with winget:

Close the terminal and open a new one (remember why?), then check it:

Your exact number may be different. Any 3.14 version is fine.

Or, easiest of all, just ask Claude: “Is Python installed? If not, install it for me.” It will also install the libraries it needs, when it needs them.

Do It Again Next Month

Many chores come back: the monthly invoices, the weekly photos. Once a job works, ask Claude to keep it:

That worked perfectly. Save this as a script called tidy_invoices.py that I can run again next month on a new file, and tell me exactly how to run it.

Next month, drop the new file in the folder and run one line. A chore that took an afternoon now takes ten seconds.

In this folder there's a spreadsheet of my expenses. First, research which Python library is best for reading and editing it, and recommend one in simple words. Then, once I agree: add a total for each month, and save the result as a new file in an "output" folder. Never change the original.