- Productivity Express
- Posts
- Issue No. 162: 10 Time Management Principles From Ancient Proverbs
Issue No. 162: 10 Time Management Principles From Ancient Proverbs
5 Ways AI Agents Can Help Solopreneurs Scale Without Hiring
Jenae Spry
March 07, 2025
Productivity Express
Issue No. 162
The Best in Evidenced-Based Productivity
for Small Business Owners, Freelancers & Founders
Helping You Work Smarter and Live More
The Rundown
Scrolling Through Social Media Has a Unique Effect on Your Body
5 Ways AI Agents Can Help Solopreneurs Scale Without Hiring
10 Time Management Principles From Ancient Proverbs
Move over, OpenAI — Opera's AI Browser Operator takes agentic AI to the next level
How To Build AI Agents That Actually Work (Anthropic's Rules Revealed)
Add this book to your reading list
⏰ TRANSFORM YOUR PRODUCTIVITY: Get Back 4+ Hours Every Day (ONLY 3 DAYS LEFT!)
Real participants using my Time Vampire Calculator are saving 5+ hours PER DAY:
Eugenia: 5.5 hours daily
Angela: 5.5 hours daily
Brigit: 5 hours daily
In just 6 quick videos, discover:
YOUR exact time-saving potential
The "Time Vampires" stealing your productivity
Simple fixes that take minutes but save HOURS
✨ ONLY 3 DAYS LEFT: $7 Lifetime Access + FREE 1:1 Strategy Session ($100 value)
Offer Expires March 10th at 9 am Pacific
🔥Quote/Prompt
There are two ways to face the future. One way is with apprehension; the other is with anticipation.
Use the quote as a writing or thinking prompt to finish your week strong.
A bit from mine:
(posted in our Doer Entrepreneurs Free Community — off social media)
I've been noticing something interesting in our group discussions about AI lately.
Many of us are feeling that initial apprehension - that's completely normal when facing change! (And let's be honest, the robots-taking-over-the-world movies haven't exactly helped our collective anxiety 😂)
But what if we flipped our perspective? What if instead of […]
Did someone forward this to you?
📈 Performance
That Instagram "quick check" that somehow turned into 45 minutes of your life? It turns out your body wasn't just wasting time; it was having a full-on physiological party. New research shows our bodies react to social media in ways that make breaking away feel like we're ditching an open bar.
What we found was that, relative to the news reading condition, scrolling away on Instagram led to a marked slowing of participants' heart rate while, at the same time, increasing their sweating response. From other research we know that such a pattern of bodily responses shows that someone's attention is fully absorbed by a highly significant or emotional stimulus in their environment – it's a state of simultaneous excitement and deep immersion into something very meaningful to us.
Key Insights:
Social media puts us in a trance-like state of "excited immersion" that regular phone activities like reading news just can't match—your body literally slows down while simultaneously getting sweaty with excitement.
When researchers cruelly tore people away from their feeds, participants' bodies freaked out with stress responses similar to what happens when you take away someone's morning coffee—hello, digital withdrawal.
Everyone in the study showed these reactions regardless of their "social media addiction" scores, meaning even those of us who swear we "could quit anytime" are physically hooked.
The researchers kindly remind us this isn't technically addiction—it's just our bodies desperately craving the social validation that comes from seeing what Karen's cat did yesterday.
Read the full article for research-backed permission to stop feeling guilty about your social media habits and practical tips on how to make your scroll time less physiologically intense.
Sponsor
Learn how to make AI work for you
AI won’t take your job, but a person using AI might. That’s why 1,000,000+ professionals read The Rundown AI – the free newsletter that keeps you updated on the latest AI news and teaches you how to use it in just 5 minutes a day.
⚙️ Optimization
I started my first business as a die-hard solopreneur…wanting to do 100% of everything in my business myself, partly because I hate delegating (control issues, anyone? 🙋♀️). I know some of you guys can relate! The thought of hiring someone to help can feel like both a financial risk and an admission that we can't do it all. But what if AI could be the perfect middle ground between drowning in tasks and taking on payroll?
For solopreneurs, the challenge of scaling—without the resources to hire—is even greater. Luckily for today's entrepreneurs, there's a powerful alternative: AI agents. These autonomous AI-powered tools can help your business grow without immediately expanding your team, which is especially critical at a stage when every dollar earned goes back into the business. When I launched Jotform in 2006, I followed one rule: never hire unless I had a year's salary for the new employee in the bank. I grew slowly, with no regrets, but sometimes I can't help but wonder—how much faster could I have scaled if AI agents had been around back then?
Key Insights:
Customer support doesn't have to be all-consuming—AI agents can function as your "Tier 1 support" team, answering basic questions 24/7 while you focus on actually growing your business instead of explaining how your checkout works for the tenth time today.
Studies show entrepreneurs spend nearly 70% of their time on administrative busywork rather than strategic growth—AI scheduling tools can reclaim those hours without the awkwardness of having an assistant know your entire calendar.
Marketing doesn't need to be your third job—AI tools can draft everything from email campaigns to social posts, giving you strong starting points that don't require staring at a blank page for hours.
Unlike human assistants who need training and management, AI agents can immediately start handling your established workflows and actually improve over time as they learn your preferences.
Read the full article for specific examples of how solopreneurs in different industries are using AI agents to scale their businesses without giving up control or taking on the commitment of employees.
⏲️ Time Management
Those productivity hacks filling your inbox might be new, but the wisdom behind them? Ancient. Turns out our ancestors weren't just surviving without smartphones—they were dropping time management gems that still hit hard today, no fancy app required.
"A stitch in time saves nine." – English Proverb This proverb teaches us the importance of acting early to prevent bigger problems later. In terms of time management, it means addressing small tasks and issues before they grow into something overwhelming. When we ignore small responsibilities—whether it's responding to an email, fixing a minor error, or organizing our workspace—they can pile up, leading to unnecessary stress and wasted time. By dealing with things promptly, we reduce future work and make our lives much easier.
Key Insights:
The Russian saying "He who chases two rabbits catches neither" is basically calling out your multitasking habit for what it is—a productivity killer that divides your attention and doubles your work time.
"Well begun is half done" is Aristotle's elegant way of saying that starting is usually the hardest part—once you begin, momentum actually does most of the work.
That Chinese proverb about "an inch of time is an inch of gold" hits different when you realize you just spent an hour in your inbox instead of working on your client deliverables.
"Little by little, the bird builds its nest" reminds us that consistent tiny efforts beat sporadic productivity sprints every time—those five-minute daily actions actually add up.
Read the full article for all ten time-tested proverbs that deserve to be Post-it notes in your workspace and practical ways to apply this ancient wisdom to your modern business life.
💻 Tools & Technology
Let's be honest - we've all watched those "agentic AI" demos where the robot brain takes 40 seconds to figure out how to click a button, so…completely useless for actually getting work done. Opera's Browser Operator is flipping that script by putting AI directly in the browser, where it can actually function at human-adjacent speeds.
Simply put, instead of having to run the browsing session virtually in its own desktop space, this operator can just take control for you directly in the browser — the world's first agentic AI in a web browser just arrived at MWC 2025. [...] Browser Operator forms a part of the Aria AI overlay you're probably already familiar with in Opera One R2 and Opera Air. Just flip over to the Operator, enter your prompt and watch it get to work.
Key Insights:
While other AI agents move like they're browsing through molasses, Opera's solution cuts the lag time in half (4-6 seconds per action versus the painful 8-10 seconds of competitors).
You can jump in and take the wheel anytime the AI starts making questionable life choics.
The system actually shows its work, so you're not left wondering "what the heck is this robot doing with my credit card information right now?"
Read the full article for a breakdown of Opera's Browser Operator completing tasks that would normally eat up your valuable billable hours and insights on why this might be the first agentic AI that's actually useful for normal humans.
🤖 AI
All that AI agent hype making you feel like you're missing some secret club everyone else joined? You're not alone. Most "agentic AI" sounds amazing until you try to implement it and watch it spectacularly fail at basic tasks. Fortunately, Anthropic just released their internal playbook on what actually works in the real world.
Anthropic found that teams succeed when they match the right approach to their task. They say 'workflows offer predictability for well-defined tasks, whereas agents shine when flexibility and model-driven decision-making are needed at scale.' What does this mean? If you're writing social posts that follow a formula, use a workflow. If you're analyzing course feedback that needs flexible thinking, use an agent. Don't overcomplicate what could be simple.
Key Insights:
"Chain your tasks" by breaking complex processes into sequential steps—have one agent create an outline, another write content, and a third check for brand consistency.
"Split the work" between multiple specialized agents rather than asking one to do everything—think of them as mini-VAs with different specialties.
For complex projects, use an "orchestrator" agent that acts as project manager, delegating tasks to worker agents and bringing everything together.
The teams getting real results spend more time optimizing their tools than perfecting prompts—small tweaks like using exact file paths instead of relative ones can eliminate errors overnight.
Read the full article for Anthropic's complete playbook on building AI agents that deliver actual business value and practical steps to implement these strategies without blowing your budget.
👀 Read, Watch, Listen
This week’s awesome books, YouTube videos, newsletters, etc. to add to your list!
Dr. Ali Abdaal challenges conventional wisdom by arguing that joy, not discipline, is the key to productivity. His book reveals that making work enjoyable naturally enhances output. Abdaal introduces three "energizers" that fuel enjoyable productivity, three "blockers" that cause procrastination, and three "sustainers" that prevent burnout and promote fulfillment. Through stories of successful individuals and actionable strategies, he demonstrates how feeling good while working leads to greater accomplishment. The book offers practical changes readers can implement immediately to achieve more while experiencing greater happiness and fulfillment in their work and lives.
🎉 Celebration Corner
Every week Doers Inner Circle members do a weekly review & get help when they need it — check out the progress they made this week!
I got almost everything done.
Completed a lot of work ON my business.
Posted and scheduled future posts on my LI company page.
What did you do this week? We feature non-member successes too. Just post them here!
🔒Inner Circle: Events & Announcements
Reminder: Wonky WEEKS start next week! Full info HERE!
Reminder: Office Hours Change (March 13). Full details HERE!
Doers Book Club: Vote for a book club book HERE!
Monday: Doers Mastermind RSVP here
Monday: {EU Time} Work ON Business. Theme: 2️⃣ Process & Productivity RSVP here
Tuesday: Work ON Business. Theme: 2️⃣ Process & Productivity RSVP here
Monday/Friday: Goal Setting + Plan Your Week Party
Accelerators: *Different Day — Thurs* March 13 is your Office Hours RSVP here
We will soon be adding Referral Perks — Refer now to start earning! 👇
As a reminder, you’re getting this twice-weekly newsletter because you opted in to receive awesome productivity and systems tips through one of these methods:
Doer Entrepreneurs, Doers Express Newsletter, Productivity Stacks, Success by Rx, ClickUp Facebook Group, Productive & Successful Translators Facebook Group.
If you’re not interested in improving your and your business’s productivity so you’d like to break up, that’s definitely a bummer. But, you can always use the unsubscribe link at the bottom if you do not want to get these tips — but keep in mind I am hyper-focused on making these twice-weekly emails as valuable as possible.
Got a tip? Hit reply!
I hope you found this valuable!
Wishing you much productivity!
- Jenae :)
Interested in reaching thousands of motivated small business owners, freelancers & founders?
Hit reply and let’s chat about sponsorship. We only include ads that match our mission: to help our readers work smarter and live more.