Organizing local context for Claude

Teresa Torres is the author of Continuous Discovery Habits and an internationally acclaimed speaker and coach. In this episode, Teresa demonstrates how she’s built a personalized productivity system using Claude Code to manage her tasks, automate research collection, and improve her writing. She shows how non-developers can leverage AI tools to create personalized workflows that match their unique needs and thinking style.

What you’ll learn:

1. How Teresa built a personalized task management system in Claude Code that matches her exact workflow needs
2. Why she moved from Trello to a markdown-based system that gives her complete control and searchability
3. How she automated academic research collection with daily digests of relevant papers
4. Her strategy for organizing context files to make Claude more effective without overwhelming it
5. Why “pair programming” with Claude has become her approach to everything from writing to task management
6. How she uses Claude as a writing partner while maintaining her authentic voice
7. The power of slash commands and automation to reduce friction in daily workflows

—

Brought to you by:

Brex—The intelligent finance platform built for founders

Graphite—The next generation of code review

—

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Teresa Torres

(02:10) Why Claude Code became Teresa’s productivity tool of choice

(03:00) The evolution from browser-based AI to terminal-based workflows

(04:14) Demo: Creating a personalized task management system

(07:52) How the task system works with markdown files and Obsidian

(12:56) Quick recap

(14:13) Taking notes within tasks for better searchability

(15:54) Demo: Automated research digest workflow

(19:32) How the research plugin searches and summarizes academic papers

(24:43) Filtering overwhelming information sources

(29:00) Using small, focused context files instead of one large document

(32:58) Claude as a writing partner: review, research, and refinement

(35:34) Recap of workflows and lightning round

—

Tools referenced:

• Claude Code: https://claude.ai/

• Obsidian: https://Obsidian.md/

• VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/

• Descript: https://www.descript.com/

• ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/

• Trello: https://trello.com/

—

Other references:

• Continuous Discovery Habits: https://www.producttalk.org/continuous-discovery-habits/

• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/

• Claude Code: What It Is, How It’s Different, and Why Non-Technical People Should Use It: https://www.producttalk.org/claude-code-what-it-is-and-how-its-different

—

Where to find Teresa Torres:

Blog: https://producttalk.org/

Podcast: https://justnowpossible.com/

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Discovery-Habits-Discover-Products/dp/1736633309

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresatorres/

—

Where to find Claire Vo:

ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/

Website: https://clairevo.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/

X: https://x.com/clairevo

—

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co.