Find 5 hours this week with one AI prompt

Moses worked from morning until evening, and he thought that was faithfulness.

His father-in-law saw it differently. "The thing that you do is not good. Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself." (Exodus 18:17-18, NKJV)

Friends, many of you are Moses right now. Good people doing good work, and slowly wearing out.

Today I'm giving you a 30-minute exercise. By the end of it, you'll know where 5 hours of your week are going and how to get them back.

Why 5 hours

Five hours is a long dinner with your family and a quiet morning alone with God. It's the proposal you keep pushing to next week.

And it's a realistic number. You're already losing 5 hours somewhere. Let's find them.

The prompt

This is Prompt 60, "Five-Hour Recovery," from the Kingdom-Minded AI Prompt Library inside my course:

Act as a skilled, ethical assistant. Build a plan to reclaim five hours per week from my workload using delegation, batching, templates and AI. Show exactly where the hours come from. If facts are missing, ask or mark them clearly rather than inventing them.

Look at that last sentence. Every prompt in the library carries it.

I put it there on purpose. AI will happily fill a gap with a guess. You want it to ask you instead.

The 30-minute exercise

Step 1: Write down last week (15 minutes). Open your calendar, your sent email folder and your phone's call log. List every task that took more than 15 minutes. Include the hour you lost looking for a file.

Next to each item, write a rough time and one word: daily, weekly or once.

Step 2: Add your context (3 minutes). Above your list, tell the AI who you are. For example: "I pastor a church of 150 with one part-time assistant." Or: "I run a 4-person roofing company and do my own estimates."

The more honest the context, the more useful the plan.

Step 3: Paste and run (2 minutes). Paste the prompt, your context and your list into the AI tool you use.

Remove anything confidential first. Client names, donor names and account numbers become "Client A" or "Donor 3."

Step 4: Question the answer (10 minutes). The AI will hand you a plan. Go through it line by line before you accept any of it. Ask:

• Is this time estimate real?

• Does this task need my judgment and my heart, or can someone else carry it?

• Who or what will actually do it, and starting when?

Then circle 3 changes you'll make this week. Only 3.

What to look for in your plan

• Emails you write from scratch every week. A template takes 10 minutes to build once and saves you every week after.

• Tasks scattered across the day. Callbacks, invoices and follow-ups often belong in one block. (Prompt 59, "Batching," goes deeper here.)

• Meetings that could be a written update. A one-paragraph summary sometimes does the job of a 45-minute call.

• First drafts. Let AI write the rough version. You bring the wisdom and the final word.

Decide where the 5 hours go

This step matters most, and it's the easiest one to skip.

Saved time has a way of disappearing into more work. So before Monday, decide where those 5 hours will go. Put them on the calendar and give them a name.

Paul wrote, "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:15-16, NKJV).

Redeemed time is time bought back for a purpose. Give yours one.

From my own journey

Two or three years ago, I was at the level many of you are at right now with AI. If I could learn this, you can.

Keep this principle in front of you: you are the boss of the workflow. AI is the employee. Christ is Lord of the life.

Your next step

Block 30 minutes on your calendar for tomorrow and do this exercise. As you look at your list, ask the Lord one question: "Father, which of these did You never assign to me?"

When you're ready for the full library of 100 prompts, the 30-Day AI Activation Plan and 9 modules that walk you through this step by step, the course is open. Enroll in Work Smarter, Not Harder with AI on Your Side