The AI prompt that tells you what to stop doing

I was feeling overwhelmed and I had a lot on my plate. Client emails, personal life stuff, and side projects that needed attention or they would die.

So I hit dictate and talked until there was nothing left in my head and pasted this prompt under it.

What I got back was everything I should do in order and what I should kill.

It also suggested a tool to get one of my most boring weekly jobs off my plate. When you run the prompt, you’ll see what I mean. Keep reading to find out which job it picked for me.

Your list could be messier than mine, and it’s going to be able to handle it because it asks you up to 5 questions before it starts.

The idea and the first half of this prompt came from Wired on AI. I added the questions up front and the second part for the work you repeat.

This prompt decides what to drop. It won’t lay out your week hour by hour. For that, use the week planner prompt.

What this prompt does with your to-do list

Just want the prompt? Jump down to it.

The prompt gives every task on your list 1 of 3 labels. Do it now, put it on the calendar with a real date, or kill it and say what you lose. There’s no “later,” no “someday” and no “monitor,” so nothing gets to sit on the list without a decision.

For every task it also names the next thing you’d physically do, starting with a verb. “Work on the deck” doesn’t count. “Open the draft and write the first section” does.

If a task is waiting on someone else, the next thing to do is chase them down. Send the email, make the call. The work itself waits until they answer.

Then it looks at the work you repeat. A weekly meeting, a monthly report, following up with clients every other Wednesday. It lists the steps inside each task and asks which steps are chores. Those are the only steps it tries to speed up.

It ends with 3 things:

• How many tasks got each label
• How many minutes a week the faster steps save you
• The one task to do if you only have 15 minutes

The setup

Turn on dictation and talk your list out. Leave nothing out, even the things you’ve been avoiding.

When it asks which steps are chores, it means the boring steps you’d hand to someone else tomorrow if you could. List them. It only looks for faster ways to do those, so the rest of your work stays the way you do it.

Skip this if your whole list fits on a sticky note, but send it to someone whose list doesn’t.

Disclaimer: The AI does not know your week. When you don’t give it a date or a number of minutes, it makes a guess. It writes the word (proposed) or (estimate) next to every guess. Check each guess and change the wrong ones before you follow the plan.

The prompt that tells you what to stop doing

Today is [today's date]. Here is everything currently open on my plate. Some of it is stale.

[paste the list: tasks, half-finished threads, things you keep re-reading and re-deciding. Rough is fine.]

Before you start, ask me in one message, no more than 5 questions: deadlines and which items have sat more than two weeks (yes or no is enough), which items repeat or are ongoing and how often, how long each takes and what the steps are, which steps are chores I would hand off tomorrow, and the tools I already use. If I don't answer, propose a number and mark it (proposed). Never guess how long an item has been sitting. Then wait.

Part 1. For every item, do three things.

1. Name the single next physical action, starting with a verb, that one person could finish in one sitting. Not "work on the deck." Something like "send Dana the pricing email" or "open the draft and write the first section."

2. Say who it is waiting on: me, or a named other person. If it is waiting on someone else, the next action is the chase, not the work.

3. Assign exactly one of: DO NOW (under 15 minutes, today), CALENDAR (name the date), or KILL (say in one line what I lose by dropping it).

Show Part 1 as one table with exactly these columns: Code, Item, Next physical action, Waiting on, Bucket. The Bucket cell holds one bucket and, for CALENDAR, one date. Nothing else goes in that cell. Under the table, list each recurring item with a proposed day and time block.

Part 2. For every recurring item, list its steps. Use my steps and my words where I gave them. Where I didn't, build the list from this vocabulary, in this order, dropping any step the item does not have: Plan, Research, Draft, Test, Edit, Build, Publish, Share, Admin. Put minutes on a step only if I gave them. Then mark each step:
- KEEP: the default. Every step is KEEP unless I called it a chore. Write KEEP and nothing else.
- HAND OFF: only on a step I called a chore. Search the web for one tool or feature that does it, checking the tools I already use first, then free, then paid. Give the name, the link to the tool's own page, and one sentence on how the step would run. Quote a price only from a page you opened in this run, with that page's URL. Otherwise write "price not checked". Flag any step that would send client or personal data to a new tool.
- STOP: nobody would notice for 30 days. Say what I'd lose.

Show each recurring item as one table with exactly these columns: Step, Minutes, Mark, What changes. KEEP rows leave the last column empty. Never explain a mark, refer to a rule, or describe your reasoning inside a table.

Under each table, give at most one shrink idea for the whole item, on one line marked (idea): do it less often, rougher, for fewer people, smaller, or in a simpler format. Say what it would look like. It is a suggestion, not a mark, and it carries no minutes.

Rules:
- Every item gets one of the three buckets. Nothing goes to "later," "someday," or "monitor."
- Any item due within 7 days, or that I say I want done today, gets its first step in DO NOW. Items with no deadline cannot be DO NOW while one of those is open.
- CALENDAR always names a date. Mark proposed dates (proposed).
- Recurring or ongoing work is never KILL. It gets a CALENDAR day and time block, and Part 2 is where it gets lighter.
- If I call something recurring or ongoing, treat it as recurring in both parts.
- If an item has been sitting more than two weeks, has no deadline, and my list doesn't say what I'd do next on it, default it to KILL and make me argue back.
- HAND OFF: one tool per step, under 30 minutes to set up.
- Do not add items. Do not give me advice about productivity systems.
- Keep my numbers. Mark anything you estimate (estimate).

End with three things.
1. The count in each bucket.
2. The minutes per week the hand-offs save, one line of math per recurring item: minutes saved per round times rounds per week. Daily is 5, weekly is 1, every other week is 0.5, monthly is 0.25. Count a step only if I gave its minutes and the tool is one I already have. Everything else goes on a separate line marked "not counted", with one-time setup listed there too.
3. The one item to do first if I only had fifteen minutes. It must be a DO NOW item. If more than one qualifies, take the earliest hard deadline. A date someone else holds me to beats a date I set myself.

Watch out: The AI only tells you to drop a task when you say it has been on your list for more than 2 weeks and it has no deadline. If you answer “it’s all ongoing,” it keeps every task and drops nothing.

When it asks which tasks have been sitting for more than 2 weeks, answer yes or no for each one.

What happened while I was building it

Every rule in this prompt is there because an earlier version got something wrong on my own list. Here’s what went wrong and what I changed.

It tried to kill the work that pays me. The first version told me to drop my prospect emails. Those are the emails that bring in new clients. It dropped the habit that feeds this newsletter too.

Some work is never finished. It should still be on your list next week. So now work you repeat can’t be killed. It gets a day and a time on your calendar, and the prompt looks for ways to make it lighter.

It put a side project ahead of a client deadline. One version picked a side project to do first, just because the first step was small. A client report due in a week got pushed to the calendar.

Now anything due within 7 days comes first. If you only have 15 minutes, it picks the task with a deadline someone else is holding you to. A date a client set beats a date you set yourself.

It cut the parts I care about. When I let it shrink any step, it told me to skip quality control. Those are the steps that make the work good. It also told me to use a template, which is advice anyone could give.

So now it leaves every step the way you do it, unless you call it a chore. The chores are the only steps it looks for help with.

It finds a tool for the boring steps. For each chore, it searches for 1 tool that can do that step for you. It checks the tools you already use first. You get the tool’s name, a link, and one sentence on how it would work. For me, the boring job was sharing each issue after it goes out. It found a tool that could do that step for me. Your mileage may vary.

It made up prices. One version quoted the same email tool at 2 different monthly prices. So now it only quotes a price from a page it opened while it was working, with the link. Otherwise it writes “price not checked.”

What it still can’t do

It doesn’t know what you do every week, and it doesn’t know your dates. Any date or number you don’t give it is a guess. It marks each guess so you can find it.

It can only drop what you tell it is old. If every answer you give is “ongoing,” nothing gets killed. You get a clean calendar with the same number of tasks on it.

The time savings only count 2 things: steps you gave it minutes for, and tools you already have. If you only give it a total time for each task, that number can come back as 0. That’s the prompt being honest about what it knows.

This prompt suggests what to drop. If you want a prompt that plans your next day, I wrote a prompt for that.