Claude Clue #17: Don't Wait! Keep Moving While Claude Works

Patience is a virtue when working with AI, but sometimes you don't actually have to wait. Claude Code has a couple of tricks that let you stay productive while it's chugging away on something. Hit Ctrl+B to send your current task to the background—you'll see "1 background task" appear at the bottom of your window, and now you're free to start something new, prep your next request, or just poke around. When Claude finishes, it'll usually let you know, though sometimes you'll need to check in yourself. The other handy tool is /btw, which lets you interrupt Claude mid-task for a quick question or status update without derailing what it's working on.

Here's what this looks like in practice: I'll kick off a refactor that I know will take a while, hit Ctrl+B, then start asking Claude about a completely different file while the first task runs. Or I'll use /btw to say "hey, when you're done with that, also check the error handling" and Claude just... picks it up along the way. (Also, if you see Claude do something you don't like, you can just type that in the prompt box—it'll periodically pause and incorporate your feedback.) Both features keep you moving instead of watching progress scroll by. You can dig into more interactive tricks in the docs.

Almost entirely human. Mostly.

Thanks Roscoe for keeping these moving!