Start a new chat every 15 to 20 messages.
Ask for a handover first (prompt 01), paste it into the new chat, and carry on. Now it isn't re-reading your whole morning.
Unlocked
01 · FRESH CHATS
02 · EDIT, DON'T REPLY
03 · ASK ONCE
04 · FILES IN A PROJECT
05 · PLAN, THEN BUILD
06 · THE RIGHT MODEL
07 · THE EFFORT DIAL
08 · TOOLS ON DEMAND
09 · A TIGHT BRIEF
10 · SCHEDULE THE REPEATS
01 · THE HANDOVER
02 · ASK ONCE
03 · THE TIGHT BRIEF
04 · THE WEEKLY JOB
Why it runs out by lunchtime
Every time you reply, Claude reads the whole conversation again before it answers, plus any files and tools that are loaded. Message twenty costs far more than message two. Big attachments, web search, research, the biggest model and a high effort setting all add to it.
There are two limits, and you can see both in Settings, then Usage: a session limit that runs for five hours from your first message, and a weekly limit. A fresh chat doesn't reset either. It just makes everything after it cheaper.
The Lean Context Method
Ten habits. The first four do most of the work.
Wrong answer? Edit your original message.
Click the pencil on your message, fix the wording, and it answers again. One round instead of two.
Put related questions in one message.
Three separate questions mean three full re-reads. Prompt 02 is the shape to use.
Put the documents you reuse in a project.
Brand guide, strategy, last quarter's numbers. Project content is cached, so it counts for less each time it's reused than uploading it again.
Plan in chat, build in Cowork.
Making files (decks, spreadsheets, documents) is the expensive part. Agree the structure in an ordinary chat first, then hand the finished plan over to be built.
Use the big model to think, a smaller one to do.
Opus for the hard thinking. Once the plan is set, switch to Sonnet for the work and Haiku for tidying. Model choice is one of the things that decides how fast you use your limit.
Turn the effort down for everyday jobs.
Summarise this, reword that, pull the actions out of these notes. None of it needs deep thinking. Save the high setting for the hard problems.
Stop loading tools you're not using.
Connected apps take up room in every conversation. In a chat, click the + (or type /), then Connectors, then Tool access, and choose On demand. Claude then loads a connector only when the job needs it. Switch off web search when you're only rewriting a paragraph.
Say what you want the first time.
A vague prompt costs twice: the weak first answer, then every "actually, I meant". Prompt 03 is the brief I use.
Anything you do every week becomes a scheduled task.
Set it up once in Cowork and it runs on its own, in a fresh, tidy conversation every time. Prompt 04 sets one up.
Set it up once, in twenty minutes
- Open Settings, then Usage. See where your session and weekly limits are, and when they reset. Look again at the end of the day to see what used it.
- Save the four prompts below somewhere you can reach in two clicks. The download has all four.
- Move the files you reuse into a project. The ones you've uploaded more than twice this month.
- Set Tool access to On demand if you have more than a handful of connectors.
- Add one line to your global instructions: "Skip the preamble. Match the length of your answer to the task." Long answers use your limit too.
- Pick one weekly job and schedule it with prompt 04. Then the habit: fresh chat, one question, tight brief.
The copy-and-paste prompts
01 is the one you'll use most. 02 and 03 stop the back-and-forth. 04 takes a weekly job out of your chats altogether.
Before you start a fresh chat
Run it in the long chat. Paste what comes back as the first message of the new one.
I'm about to continue this in a new chat to keep things fast. Write me a handover I can paste in as the first message. Include: the goal, the decisions we've made so far, anything still open, and the exact next step. Leave out anything we've finished with. Under 200 words, written as instructions to you, starting "We're picking up where we left off." Don't add anything we didn't decide.
Several jobs in one message
Instead of sending three questions one after another.
I have several related jobs. Do all of them in one go, clearly labelled: 1. [first job] 2. [second job] 3. [third job] For each one, give me the result, then one line on anything you had to assume. Don't ask me questions between them. Put any questions at the end.
Say it properly the first time
Fill the brackets. Takes a minute, saves three rounds.
Here's the brief. Audience: [who it's for] Format: [email / post / memo / document] Length: [roughly how long] Goal: [what it must achieve] Must include: [the key points] Tone: [how it should sound] Avoid: [what to leave out] Give me one strong draft, not a set of options. Then ask me only the questions that would change the result.
Take a repeat job out of your chats
In Claude Cowork: Scheduled tasks, new task, pick the day and time, paste this, save. It runs in a fresh conversation every time.
Every [Monday at 8am], do this: [the job, for example: read my calendar and last week's notes and give me the three things to focus on this week]. Pull from [where: my calendar, a folder, a spreadsheet]. Keep it to [one page]. Save the result to my Outputs folder as [job-name]-YYYY-MM-DD.md. If anything you need is missing, say so at the top rather than guessing.
Already hit it today?
Check Settings, then Usage, to see when your session resets. Until then, start a short fresh chat with a tight brief (prompt 03) rather than going back into the long one, and switch to a smaller model. A clean start with a clear ask gets far more done with what's left.
The one thing to remember
Your limit is rarely about Claude. It's about how cleanly you brief it. The people who never hit the wall are clear, specific and tidy about context, which is exactly what makes someone good at handing work to other people too. Claude just makes the cost of a messy brief show up faster.
Downloads
When it's not quite right
I started a fresh chat and it forgot everything
That's what a fresh chat does. Run prompt 01 in the old chat first and paste the handover in. For things it should always know, put them in a project.
I still hit it, even with short chats
Look at what's attached. A big PDF or spreadsheet in every chat, research mode, or the biggest model on high effort can use a session on its own. Move the file to a project and turn the effort down.
Cowork uses it up faster than chat
Building files takes more than talking. Plan the structure in chat first (habit 05), give Cowork only the files it needs, and schedule the jobs you repeat.
The weekly task didn't run
Open Scheduled tasks and check the task's history. The usual reason is the laptop was asleep or the Claude app was closed.