Your Mom Profile — The One-Time File That Makes Everything Faster
Why this exists.
Every time you open a new chat with Claude, you start from scratch. Claude doesn't know your kids' names, your partner's schedule, the dog's dietary thing, what "early" means in your household, or that the oldest has practice on Wednesdays. You end up re-typing the same 4-5 lines at the start of every conversation: "I have a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old, we're gluten-free, soccer Tuesday/Thursday, dinner by 6..."
This bonus fixes that, once. You spend a few minutes doing a guided interview with Claude. At the end, you walk away with a short document — your Mom Profile — that captures who you are, who's in your life, and what Claude needs to know to be actually helpful. Then you save it in two or three places, and you never re-type that context again.
Once it exists, it works everywhere — browser Claude, the desktop app, Cowork, and every Project you've built.
The three places it pays off
1. Every new chat — paste it in at the top and Claude's answer is immediately 10× more tailored.
2. Your Projects (Family Manager, Kid Life, Home Operations, Money Command Center — plus Inbox Command Center only if you've built the optional Inbox Power Users Project) — upload it as a file to each Project's Files panel and every conversation inside that Project starts knowing you. The Files panel is the right home; custom instructions stay reserved for tone, format, and rules.
3. Cowork — point Cowork at the file on your desktop and it reads it automatically whenever it works for you.
Step 1 — Let Claude interview you.
Open a new chat (browser or app, either one). Paste the prompt below and answer whatever Claude asks. Be honest — vague answers produce vague profiles. Claude will ask you clarifying follow-ups if you're too brief; that's the whole point.
A note on the one-question-at-a-time part
This is the part of the prompt that makes this work. Without it, Claude will dump all nine questions on you in a giant wall of text, which is exhausting and makes you want to quit the interview. Forcing it to go one at a time turns it into an actual conversation — and you'll be surprised how much better your answers are when you're thinking about one thing instead of nine.
Step 2 — Save the profile.
When Claude finishes the interview, it will write up the profile. Copy that whole thing. Now you need to save it somewhere you can find it again. Pick the place that fits where you live digitally:
If you mostly use Claude in a browser
Make a new doc in Google Docs or Apple Notes called "Mom Profile". Paste it in. Bookmark the doc. Done.
If you have the desktop app (or plan to)
Make a file on your desktop called mom-profile.txt (or .md — same thing for this purpose). Paste it in. Save. Now Cowork can reference it by name.
If you're a spreadsheet/email brain
Email it to yourself with subject line "Mom Profile — save" and star the email. Sounds silly. Works.
Step 3 — Drop it into your Projects.
This is where the profile starts doing real work. Open each of the Projects you've built in the course (Family Manager, Kid Life, Home Operations, Money Command Center — plus Inbox Command Center only if you've built the optional Inbox Power Users Project) and upload the profile as a file in the Files panel of each one (Cowork Projects label this as Context — same thing).
If you haven't built a Project yet — come back to this step after you do your Family Manager build. It takes 30 seconds per Project once you know where the field is.
- Open claude.com (or the desktop app) and sign in.
- Click Projects in the left sidebar. Pick your Family Manager.
- Look for Custom Instructions or Project Instructions (button or tab near the top, depending on the interface).
- Paste your Mom Profile in. Add a line at the very top that says: "Read this first. It tells you who I am and how to help me."
- Click Save.
- Repeat for your other Projects. Same profile, goes in every one. Takes two minutes total.
Pro bonus — point Cowork at the file on your desktop
If you're on Claude Pro and have Cowork installed (Phase 3), you can also put your mom-profile.txt file in a known folder (like Documents/Claude) and tell Cowork once: "Whenever I ask you to do something personal, first read mom-profile.txt from my Documents/Claude folder." It'll remember that folder as a reference file going forward. This means even brand-new Cowork tasks outside of a Project start with full context.
Step 4 — Test it.
Open a brand-new chat (or new Project conversation). Don't re-introduce yourself. Just ask something like one of the prompts below. If the profile is working, Claude's answer will land immediately — specific to your kids, your schedule, your tone preference.
What "working" looks like
- Claude uses your kids' names, not "your kids."
- Dinner suggestions skip what you said you don't eat.
- The tone matches what you asked for — not the default corporate-chirpy voice.
- Suggestions respect your boundaries ("don't just tell me to meal-prep Sunday").
- If something's off — update the profile. This is a living document.
What to keep in, what to leave out.
The profile is going to be read by Claude whenever you ask it to. That's fine — Claude doesn't memorize it, broadcast it, or use it outside your chats. But a few things are worth being thoughtful about.
Fine to include
- First names, ages, adjectives
- Dietary stuff, allergies
- Schedule patterns
- Your city or region
- Tone and boundary preferences
- A kid's current "big thing" (new school, new sibling, sports year)
Think twice about
- Specific medical diagnoses (OK in general terms; skip lab numbers / prescriptions)
- Mental health specifics for family members — use general terms ("managing anxiety") not clinical ones
- Your partner's salary or employer name
- Home address — city is enough
Leave out
- Legal proceedings / custody specifics
- Account numbers, SSNs, card numbers
- Anything you wouldn't want to see in a screenshot
- Other people's private info without their buy-in (in-laws, co-parents with a complicated situation)
Update it when life changes.
The profile is not a diary — it's a working document. When a kid ages into a new grade, when you start a new job, when a diet changes, when a season-of-life shifts — open the file, edit the relevant bit, and re-paste into your Projects.
You just gave every future chat a head start.
Head back to whatever lesson you were on — or check out the other bonuses.
The Quick Reference →