10 business moves that AI × Operations × Data can help you make

Here's where my hours went over the last two weeks:
[paste your table from Move 1]

Go through every recurring task, one at a time, and ask me:
- Who would notice if I stopped doing this for a month?
- What would stopping cost: money, a client, or just my habit?

Then sort each task into:
Stop: nobody would notice, or the cost is small
Shrink: do it less often, shorter, or a lighter version
Keep: it earns its hours

Total the hours a month I'd get back from Stop and Shrink. Be direct. I tend to keep things out of habit.

Here are my current clients. For each one: what they paid me in the last six months, roughly how many hours a month they take (meetings, delivery, messages), and anything that makes them easy or hard to work with (scope creep, late payments, constant changes, referrals they send).

[upload your invoice or payment export, and paste the hours and notes]

1. Work out each client's real hourly rate: what they paid divided by the hours they took.
2. Rank them on that rate, and separately on how much time and energy they take outside the work itself.
3. Sort them into: keep as is, keep but change the terms (price, scope or how we communicate), or plan to let go.
4. For anyone in "change the terms," draft a short, kind message I could send.
5. Tell me how many hours a month I'd get back if I let go of the bottom group, and how much revenue I'd need to replace.

Use only the numbers I give you. If a number is missing, ask me instead of estimating.

Here's what I sell. For each offer: the price, how many hours it takes me to deliver (including calls, emails and revisions), how many I sold in the last 12 months, and roughly how many people I offered it to.

[paste your list]

1. Work out my real hourly rate on each offer.
2. Flag where my rate is lowest and demand is highest. Those are the likely candidates for a price increase.
3. For the top candidate, model a 15%, 25% and 40% increase: how many fewer clients could I take and still earn the same? How many hours would that free up?
4. Point out anything I charge by the hour that could be a fixed price for a defined result, and what the scope of that result would be.
5. Draft a short, plain note telling existing clients about the new price, with a start date.

Don't recommend a price just because it sounds premium. Show the math.

Here's everything I sell, including the custom one-offs I keep saying yes to. For each: revenue in the last 12 months, number of clients, hours to deliver, and how different the delivery is from my other offers (its own templates, tools or steps).

[paste your list]

1. Which offer earns the least per hour, and which takes the most one-of-a-kind work to deliver?
2. Which offers share most of the same delivery process and could become one?
3. Recommend one offer to cut or pause. Tell me the revenue I'd lose and the hours I'd get back.
4. Show me a simpler menu: three offers or fewer, each with a clear scope.

If cutting something would hurt more than it helps, say so.

For the last week I kept a list of every time someone (a client, my team, a contractor) needed me for something.

[paste the list]

1. Group the list. Which questions or decisions came up most, even when they were worded differently?
2. Pick the one that comes up most and costs me the most focus.
3. Interview me about it, one question at a time, until someone else could handle it without me. When I say "it depends," ask what it depends on.
4. Write it up as one page: When this comes up / What to do / What still comes to me / Why it matters.

Keep it short enough that someone would actually read it.

Here are the recurring tasks from my week, with roughly how many hours each takes a month:
[paste from your Move 1 table]

Sort each one into:
A. Needs my judgment: my experience is truly the input
B. Needs context only I have, but not my judgment: write it down once and someone else can do it
C. AI can do a first draft if it has the right inputs (notes, templates, past examples)
D. A person can do it today with a short how-to

For B, C and D, tell me what's missing for the handoff: the page, the template or the inputs. Then pick the one handoff that frees the most hours for the least setup, and write the first draft of what it needs.

Push back if I'm calling something "needs me" just because I like it done my way.

Here's where my clients from the last 12 months came from, and what each has paid me so far:
[paste: client initials / source / revenue]

And here's roughly how many hours a month I put into each channel:
[e.g. LinkedIn posts 8h, networking events 6h, podcast guesting 4h, referrals 0h]

1. Total revenue by source.
2. Revenue per hour of my time on each source.
3. Which source brings the clients who stay longest or pay the most?
4. Recommend where to put more time, where to cut back, and what to stop.
5. Suggest one simple way to record the source of every new lead from now on.

If a source is marked "unknown," leave it out of the recommendations and tell me how many clients fell there.

Here are last month's numbers:
[upload or paste: revenue by client or offer, expenses, money in and out of the bank, open invoices, and the deals in my pipeline]
I worked about [X] hours last month.

Give me a one-page read:
1. Revenue, expenses and what I actually kept, compared with the month before if you have it.
2. Revenue per hour I worked.
3. Money owed to me, and anything overdue.
4. Pipeline: what's likely to close next month, and how that compares with what I need.
5. The three numbers that changed the most, with one plain question about each for me to answer.

Facts from my numbers only. If something's missing, list it instead of guessing. Use the same format every month so I can compare.

I'm trying to decide whether it's time to hire someone (employee or contractor). Here's what I know:
- Hours I worked last month, and how many I want to work: [X / Y]
- The work I'd hand to this person, with hours per month: [paste from your Move 7 list]
- What I charge, and how much more work I could sell if I had the hours: [describe]
- What this person would likely cost: [hourly rate or salary]

1. Is the work I'd hand over defined well enough for someone to take it on? If not, list what needs writing down first.
2. Compare their cost with the hours I'd free up and what those hours are worth, whether I sell them or use them elsewhere.
3. Break-even: how many extra hours of paid work do I need to sell for this to pay for itself?
4. Recommend one: hire now, start with a small contractor test, or fix the process first. Explain why in three lines.

Don't assume I can sell the freed hours. Ask me how confident I am about demand.