During part of a two hour basic introductory session on Friday 17 April in Dublin, I’m sharing how I use Claude.ai with my Google Workspace, with my Airtable bases, and with Obsidian. I have dozens of prompts as text and as audio snippets that I use every day when allowing Claude to complete tasks for me.
You can get your €22 tickets for the 17 April event on Eventbrite.
Here’s a sample of what I’ve shown people about some of the ways I use Claude.ai.
Claude with Google Workspace
With Gmail to draft or send emails I can say something like: “Draft an email to my team letting them know the Monday meeting is moved to Wednesday." Claude searches my inbox, read threads, creates drafts, and helps me manage messages without having to open Gmail. I’ve done this while waiting on rain-swept Platform 3 in Limerick Junction.
With Google Calendar to schedule and manage events For example: “Find a free 30-minute slot this week for a call with Sarah and send her an invite." Claude checks my calendar for availability, create events, update existing ones, or respond to invitations on my behalf. When I did this stuck with a cheerful bunch of people on the M8 near Cashel, Claude asked me for Sarah’s surname because there are several people named Sarah in the CSV I’ve uploaded as my contacts.
With Google Drive to search and retrieve documents Sample: “Find the Q1 budget spreadsheet in my Drive and summarize it." Claude can search Google Drive for files by name or content, fetch their text, and use that to answer questions or help build something new. Claude needs help with file names or it will give approximations. This is helpful during collaborations I do with European collaborators in projects.
Claude and Airtable
Claude can pull up and summarize Airtable project status Prompt: “Show me all the tasks in my Authentic Stories base that are due this week." Claude can query my Airtables, filter records by status, assignee, or due date, and give me a clean summary. I can often do this faster with the Airtable app but Claude shows me where things stand without manually sorting through rows.
Claude can add new tasks or update existing ones For example: “Add a new task called ‘Unmarked Headstones’ assigned to me, due Friday, with status ‘In Progress’." Claude can create new records or update fields on existing ones. This works well while in walking in cemeteries with community groupss I have to be in the correct Airtable Base when doing this sort of thing.
Searching Airtable bases for specific information Try: “Find all records related to the Action Tuam account across my bases." Claude searches my Airtable for records matching keywords, pulls relevant details, and surfaces connections that I might not immediately see. That is very useful when a project spans multiple tables or bases.
Claude and Obsidian.
Markdown is native to both Claude and Obsidian. Obsidian stores everything as plain Markdown files and Claude reads and writes Markdown fluently. That means Claude can open a note, understand its structure, edit it, or create new notes that drop right into your Vault without any conversion or formatting friction. I often set calendar items for myself using Obsidian on my phone and add the Markdown file name in the description of the calendar item to ensure Claude pulls the correct project when I ask about it.
Claude works with my Obsidian Vault as a folder. I point Cowork at my Vault’s folder in my computer’s root directory. This works only on my laptop where Claude has access to all my working notes, templates, and attachments. It can search across files, synthesize content from multiple notes, spot gaps, or generate new notes that match my existing style and linking conventions. All this happens quickly, leaving my Vault.
Claude handles the kinds of time-sapping tasks that drop into my Obsidian. Claude summarizes long notes, drafts MOCs (Maps of Content), extracts action items from meeting notes, reformats imported content, and builds out structured templates. These are the kinds of writing and reasoning tasks Claude has been created to do. Combined with Obsidian’s local-first, plaintext philosophy, the two tools complement each other naturally.
I use all four of these tools in concert and use the GCAO acronym to lock the idea into people's minds after they hear me describe them.
- G Google Workspace
- C Claude
- A Airtable
- O Obsidian
The GCAO acronym also features in a segment on creating efficient prompts that I explain when I teach AI Just with Phones.
I will update my InsideView.ie Microblog as Larry Maguire and I roll out more introductory sessions.