Manage an inbox and build courses and budgets with Claude Code
A non-technical user filters their inbox to emails needing replies, turned 15 homeschool PDFs into interactive narrated courses, and built a budget dashboard.
Done withClaude Code
- What they did
- Michael Crist, a CEO who can't code, ran Claude Code from a project folder on his computer. He connected Gmail through an MCP server and asked it to list only emails from real people awaiting a reply. For the budget, he loaded bank transactions, credit card statements and Amazon order history, then had it build a dashboard. He approved each permission prompt.
- How it went
- The inbox scan reduced what felt like a hundred unread messages to about 8 needing replies. He spot-checked the budget numbers and found them right. The article gives few details on the homeschool courses.
- Worth knowing
- Back up files before letting it edit, and launch it only from a dedicated folder, because files it reads are sent to Anthropic's servers. A paid plan is required, starting at Claude Pro ($20/month).
Try it yourself with Claude Code
I'm not technical, so please explain steps simply. Take the PDFs in [folder path] and turn them into [an interactive study course / a budget dashboard] I can open in my browser, with [features, e.g. quizzes, narration, charts]. You're done when I can open the result by double-clicking a file; ask before deleting or changing my original files.
Source: michaelcrist.substack.com · Undated
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