The week that cost me $12,000

Hey Coach Will here,

Last week, a few of you replied saying you'd tried the 5 Questions for the first time. One reply stopped me: "I felt guilty for not having more on my list."

That's today's topic. (Also — guilt about a short to-do list? Only builders think like this.)

In today's issue:

Let's get into it.

The average business owner wastes 21.8 hours per week on low-value activity.

That's from an Inc. study of hundreds of small business owners. Not scrolling. Not slacking. Working on the wrong things. (And yes, you felt "productive" the entire time. That's the cruel part.)

If your time is worth $250 an hour — and at $1M+ in revenue, it should be — that's $5,400 in direct costs per week. Add the strategic decisions you didn't make because you were "too busy"? Closer to $12,000.

Not because you're lazy. Because your list is broken.

Here's what kills me: some of you already sensed this. You've been circling it for weeks — knowing something on your list doesn't belong there but keeping it around like a gym membership you'll "definitely use next month."

You don't need permission. You need a better list.

Every coach, course, and AI guru is telling you to do more. More automation. More systems. More webinars about doing more. (My personal favorite: a 90-minute workshop on "saving time." You can't make this up.)

But a study in Nature found that when people try to improve something, fewer than 10% consider removing anything. We're wired to add. Even when subtraction is faster, cheaper, and better.

The most successful companies? Harvard found the same pattern: they achieve more by doing less. Not less effort. Less noise.

Your brain already knows this. That restless feeling when your calendar is packed but nothing is moving? That's not anxiety. That's your brain being smarter than your calendar. (It usually is.)

The Subtraction Framework:

✅ Audit — What consumed your time last week that didn't create revenue or strategic clarity? Write it all down. The embarrassing stuff, too.

✅ Cut — Circle the 3 items that actually compound. Delete, delegate, or defer everything else. (Your to-do list is not a museum. Stop preserving things.) Your to-do list is not a museum. Stop preserving things that belong in the trash.

✅ Protect — Block your calendar around the 3 that matter. Treat them like client meetings. Because they are.

✅ Review — Every Friday, ask: "What crept back onto my plate that doesn't belong there?" (Spoiler: something always does.)

That's not time management. That's strategy. And your brain has been trying to do it for you — you just haven't let it.

The $12,000 Altlevel™ Prompt

Here's a prompt that calculates what your busy weeks actually cost:

(ChatGPT will ask you to fill in your details before running. Use Claude? Copy the prompt above.)

How to use it: Run this every Monday morning. The first time will sting. (Mine told me my most expensive employee was me, doing $15/hour work.) The second time will feel like a superpower.

The Week I Stopped Being "Productive"

I was 47. solid eight figures, great team, clients calling. Also working 60+ hour weeks, and couldn't tell you where half of it went. But I had a very impressive calendar. Color-coded and everything.

I could tell you precisely when I was wasting my time — I just color-coded it so it looked intentional.

My wife told me I was overthinking everything. My VP said, "Just pick the priorities and go." My board wanted a cleaner plan.

Everyone around me agreed on one thing: Will thinks too much. (They were unanimous. They were also wrong.)

Research in the Journal of Consumer Research confirms we consistently choose urgent tasks over important ones — because urgency feels like value.

We do the loud thing, not the right thing.

And a study from Stanford's Greg McKeown found that success itself becomes a catalyst for failure — more opportunities, more commitments, more "quick favors" that somehow take three hours.

One Friday, I ran the 5 Questions. When I got to "What's not working?" I wrote down everything I'd done that week. Then I circled the items that actually moved the business forward.

Seven. Out of plus forty things on the list!

Let that land for a second.

I'd spent two hours that morning reformatting a spreadsheet nobody was going to read.

I missed a core client call because I was "in meetings all day" (important meetings, obviously). I delayed a product launch by two months — kept getting pulled into operations.

Burned out my best employee because everything was "urgent" (spoiler: it wasn't).

The week I cut 15 items was the week things started compounding again. Not because I was doing less. Because I was finally thinking clearly enough to see what mattered.

The noise dropped. The decisions got sharper. And — I'm not going to pretend this wasn't the best part — I left the office at 5 pm for the first time in years.

My brain wasn't the problem. My list was. Yours probably is too. (Sorry. But also — you're welcome.)

If you had 20 extra hours this week, would you actually spend them on what matters?

(Or would you fill them with 20 new hours of "important" busywork? Be honest.)

I already know the answer. I've been you. Except I had a color-coded calendar and a very strong opinion about which shade of blue meant "urgent." (It was all urgent. None of it mattered.)

Hit reply with CUT and tell me what it is. I read everyone.

Think Bigger • Play Smarter • Win More!