How AI Became My $20/Month Project Manager
📌 About This Series:
You're about to get the exact framework we use to run projects and manage our team without losing our minds. Weekly plans that don't fall apart. Check-ins that aren't a waste of time. Meetings that people don't dread. This series shows you the whole map and gives you the turn-by-turn directions.
📌 Part 2 of 4: How AI Became My $20/Month Project Manager
Late last year, my monitor started looking blurry as I stared at a list of internal projects that hadn't moved in months.
My phone rang. It was my best friend who manages 100 people and never complains. And he was about to tell me why I was doing this all wrong.
What he shared in the next 15 minutes changed how I run projects forever.
The Call That Changed Everything
It was 8 PM. I was trying to figure out how to make progress on ideas that had all been held back.
I asked him: "How do you handle 100 people and get all these projects to the finish line?"
His answer: “If you want my help, we could fix this now."
I looked at the clock. I was exhausted.
"I appreciate it. We can get together and go over it. This would probably take a few hours."
He laughed. "Nope. I can tell you everything in 15 minutes. Once we hang up the phone, you'll know exactly what you need to do. You can figure out how you want to do it because that part is flexible, but it won't be hard."
He could show me the light at the end of the tunnel in 15 minutes?
I had to say yes.
The 1-7-3 System
He walked me through it.
Three things:
Daily commitments
Weekly one-on-ones
Quarterly goals
"This is how things get done," he said. "You can build your unique way of approaching the 173 system, but as long as you do justice to each of these three, you can't hold back progress."
I stopped him. "Three things don't sound like a lot, but when you add them up, they'll likely take a lot of my time, which I don't have."
He didn't hesitate. "Nope. If you set it up right, and that is your first project, the investment on your end will be no more than 30 minutes per project per week to keep it on track and support your team member who's tasked with it."
I had more questions than answers.
He was happy to help but his specific approach to 173 wouldn’t fit my business. My plan had to be directly relevant to the type of work we do, the number of people I manage, and the goals I have set for myself.
The Wall
As I got off the call, I told myself: "He's convinced. If I figure out my 173, it will just take me no more than 30 minutes per week per project to guarantee progress."
But, how?
The first thing I needed was the ability to take an idea and turn it into a week by week plan so each week my team would be clear on what to accomplish and we can verify progress on those weekly one-on-ones.
For the life of me, I could not figure out how someone would take a giant project and know what needs to happen each week.
I thought it would mean spending a crazy amount of hours to plan the whole thing out.
A few days later, I was close to giving up, but then all of a sudden I found the answer I was looking for.
You're Not Alone
Here's what happens in creative firms all the time.
The team gets excited about an idea. A new process. A better system. An internal project that would make everything simpler and more consistent.
The idea gets written down. Assigned to a member of the team.
They start. Then a client request comes in. Then a fire that needs putting out. Then a shinier idea that seems more interesting.
Six months later? Nothing.
The idea is still sitting in a Google Doc somewhere. Untouched.
This is "Blank Page Paralysis."
It's not laziness. It's not a lack of commitment.
It's the absence of structure.
Without weekly goals, there's no target to hit. Without accountability, progress is a hope, not a guarantee.
And without a plan? The project feels too big to start.
So it drifts. And drifts. And eventually, it dies.
The Stakes
Here's what it costs you:
💸 Time. Improvements that could free you up never get implemented.
💸 Momentum. Projects that should take three months take two years. Or never happen.
💸 Mental Load. Leadership becomes the bottleneck because they're the only one who can "see" the plan, answer to everything, and run around putting out fires all day.
You know what needs to happen. You just don't know how to break it down without spending 10 hours planning.
And who has 10 hours?
The Lunch Break That Changed Everything
A few days after that phone call, I was eating lunch and flipping through headlines on my phone.
One caught my eye:
"AI is killing jobs of project management teams across industries."
I almost flipped past as I was looking for something more positive to read but,
one line exploded like a bomb:
"Companies of all sizes are leveraging AI to break down projects and direct their teams. Even highly skilled and experienced project managers have admitted using AI has improved their results."
I stared at that sentence.
If the pros are using AI and getting better results, I don't need to be a pro.
I just need AI.
Research and planning? That's literally what AI was built for.
The Test
I opened ChatGPT immediately.
I fed it a problem I'd been stuck on for months:
We track every client request in our support management platform. Unfortunately, things go stale at times. Sometimes we're waiting on a client to send us something. Sometimes we're waiting on a vendor to take action. Sometimes another member of our team needs to take a step so we can continue helping the client.
I wanted to build a system that could remind us to review and update the status of a client request in a unique way based on the state that particular request was sitting in.
This felt challenging because of the number of variables I had to plan for. And the platform we use has a million options to execute on something like this.
I wanted nothing to fall through the cracks for our clients. And I wanted us to always have a handle on everything that's open.
I hit send.
The "Three Identities" Moment
What came back blew my mind.
It wasn't just one expert. It was three.
✅ A genius who knew how our business worked.
✅ An expert in the platform we use (that only our industry knows about).
✅ A veteran who knew best practices from the most successful companies in our field.
It didn't just show me the light at the end of the tunnel.
It illuminated the entire tunnel so I could walk confidently without tripping over rocks in the dark.
And that's when I realized: this wasn't just about solving one problem.
This was a system that could solve all my problems.
What I Built Next
I didn't just use AI to plan that one project.
I spent the next week building a framework.
A two-stage system: Research, then Planning.
I built in adjustable parameters, like the ones below, so our clients can use it:
Company size (5-50 employees)
Hours per week the team member could dedicate
Project constraints and unknowns
It wasn't about making AI do everything. It was about making AI do the heavy lifting so I could focus on refining the plan with my team.
The first draft from AI? It's 80% there in 10 minutes.
And that's the difference between "I'll get to it someday" and "We're starting Monday."
The Anti-Pitch
Look, this isn't magic.
The first plan AI spits out? It needs work. You'll tweak it. Your team member will adjust it in Week 1.
But here's the thing: you're not staring at a blank page anymore.
You're not spending 10 hours manually planning a project.
You're reviewing something that's already 80% done. And that changes everything.
The Transformation
A few months ago, I was in a meeting with a client.
A partner at the firm mentioned: "Everyone always asks me everything. And I always find myself having to ask everyone everything. At times, it feels like half the day goes toward chasing information around the office."
She knew what she needed:
1- A project management system.
2- Policy and procedures for information management.
But she knew to do it justice, it needs proper investment of time and effort to build.
"I don't have that time now," she said. "I don't know when I will. But I'm hoping someday I will, and someday things will get better."
I stopped her.
"How many hours a week can you commit right now?"
Her answer: "I know I can commit five hours a week, every week, consistently. That's one hour per day. But I can't do any more, and I know that's not going to be enough."
I told her: "I don't know if it will be. But guess what? I have a prompt that can tell us not only if it's possible, but how it can be done week by week."
The 15-Minute Meeting
We got on a call the following Thursday.
Within the first 15 minutes of that call, she was ready to get started.
Because I was able to show her the plan for the first four weeks.
Investing five hours of her time per week. By the end of that month, she would be one giant step forward toward something she could not foresee ever getting done.
Even just seeing what she would accomplish after the 1st month would have been worth it to start.
We went at it. And we've been at it now for six months.
We are so close to giving her a big piece of what she was wishing for.
But if it never started? She would have been exactly where she was six months ago.
The Vision vs. The Consequence
Here's what happens when you have a system like this:
✅ Projects that used to stall now move.
✅ Teams have clear weekly goals instead of vague "work on this when you can" assignments.
✅ The owner stops being the bottleneck.
✅ You get wins every 90 days instead of "someday."
Here's what happens if you don't fix this:
❌ Six more months of ideas sitting in a Google Doc.
❌ The same frustration: "Why can't we finish anything?"
❌ The same overload: carrying every plan in your head.
You've been walking toward the light at the end of the tunnel.
But without a plan, you're tripping over rocks in the dark.
AI doesn't just show you the destination. It illuminates the entire path.
Start Here
You don't need to be an AI expert.
You don't need a project manager on staff.
You just need to know how to ask the right questions. And the framework does that for you.
Want the exact AI framework I use to break down projects into weekly goals?
👉 [Download the prompt template here.]
It's fillable, adjustable, and ready to use.
And if you want help setting this up for your team, or building a custom version for your business, let's chat.
Next week: I'll walk you through the exact Friday check-in system we use to keep projects on track. Weekly goals only work if you have a rhythm to support them.
Previous chapter in the series: Your Complete Template for Team & Project Management