Stop maxxing out Claude. Trust me, you don’t need "Max" effort settings to rewrite an email. But you might want it to spend more time checking a proposal before you send it. Anthropic published a breakdown of how Claude’s effort levels work. The useful part: Higher effort gives Claude more room to check its work, catch things it missed, and make decisions on your behalf. That takes time. And you don’t need it for every task. Here’s how to choose: → Low: You want a quick draft. Read it, give feedback, repeat. → Medium: You know the goal. Give it the details and review what comes back. → High: Details matter. Ask it to check for mistakes and missing pieces. → Extra high: The task is still tangled. Show it what’s wrong and ask it to compare options. → Max: You want a thorough attempt at a big, complicated job. Answer its questions first. Review its choices after. Before any big task, start a chat with this prompt: “I want to [goal]. Don’t start yet. Ask me questions first, so we agree on what good looks like.” Then get a draft on low or medium. Tell Claude what’s off. Use high to check the work. And if it keeps getting the wrong answer, revisit the instructions. More effort won’t necessarily fix a wrong approach. Save the guide for your next task. --- New models with new settings every freaking Tuesday. You need to know what to do when you open Claude tomorrow, instead of just a "breaking" post. That's why I write “How to AI”. What to use, how to use it & what to stop wasting your time on. Stop figuring out every update from scratch. Get the free guides: