Many of you know I send out a dispatch email every Thursday and Saturday with a single, focused idea to help you build a smarter business. The response to this week’s Saturday dispatch was so strong, I decided to record an audio version of it for you.
I’m calling these ‘Saturday Shorts.’ They’ll be quick, potent, standalone thoughts—perfect for a Saturday morning coffee. Let me know what you think of this new format. For now, here’s this week’s dispatch.
"I feel like I have AI apps and stuff all over the place. I really need to dial it down."
That's Kate. She's a brilliant AI consultant - teaching workshops, landing paid clients, getting invited back by the Small Business Development Center of Florida for four more sessions next year. By every external measure, she's crushing it.
But when we got on a call in the AI Lab of AI Solopreneur OS recently, she confessed something that I hear almost every single day: she's paying for Martin AI, Centra, ChatGPT, Gamma, Kajabi, Zapier, Hagen - the list goes on. She called it "AI ADHD." And here's the thing - it wasn't making her business better. It was making her feel guilty.
Every month, another charge hits the credit card. Another tool she didn't touch. Another promise that this one would finally be the answer.
If that landed in your chest just now, stay with me. Because what I'm about to show you isn't about adding one more thing. It's about subtracting almost everything - and finally building the system you actually need.
THE DIAGNOSIS
Here's what's really happening when you've got eight different AI subscriptions and you can't remember the last time you logged into half of them.
It's not laziness. It's not a character flaw. It's not even poor planning.
It's what I call Tech Overwhelm masquerading as opportunity.
Every new tool promises to be the missing piece. The AI video generator that'll finally make your content go viral. The automation platform that'll give you your weekends back. The transcription service with the slightly better accuracy rate.
And so you sign up. You pay the $19 or $49 or $99 a month. You tell yourself, "I'll set this up this weekend."
But you don't. Because you're too busy managing all the other tools you signed up for last month.
This is what I call the Admin Tax on your genius. And it's not just costing you money - though Kate was spending over $100 a month on tools she barely used. It's costing you something far more valuable: your attention.
Every time you context-switch between tools, every time you try to remember which platform does what, every time you see that charge and feel that little ping of guilt - you're paying a tax. A tax on your focus. A tax on your creativity. A tax on the strategic thinking that actually grows your business.
And here's the worst part: you already have the tool you need. You're just not using it right.
THE 4-STEP AUDIT
So let's fix this. Right now. I'm going to walk you through the same four-step process I took Kate through on that call. And by the end of this, you're going to know exactly which subscriptions to kill, which one to keep, and how to turn that one into your most valuable team member.
Step 1: The Inventory
First, we need to see the full picture. And the best way to do that is in a simple Notion database - or if you don't have Notion yet, just a Google Sheet works fine.
Create three columns: Tool Name, Monthly Cost, and Last Time I Used This to Create Something That Actually Mattered.
Not "logged in." Not "played around with." I mean: when did this tool help you ship a client deliverable, publish a piece of content, close a sale, or save you a measurable hour of work?
List everything. Every AI subscription. Every automation platform. Every "I'll get to it someday" SaaS tool.
Step 2: The 90-Day Test
Now, look at that last column. If you haven't used a tool to create real value in the last 90 days, it needs to go.
I don't care how good the deal was. I don't care that you might need it someday. I don't care that the founder is a nice person you met at a conference.
If it hasn't earned its keep in three months, it's not a tool - it's a monthly guilt payment.
Now here's the moment of truth: add up that Monthly Cost column. Look at the total.
When Kate did this, she went silent for a moment. Then she said, "Oh my gosh." Because seeing it all in one place - that's when it hits you.
That number represents money leaving your account every single month. But more than that, it represents mental real estate. Every one of those line items is taking up space in your brain, even when you're not using it.
Identify the five tools giving you the least return. And cancel them. Today. Not "when I have time to export my data." Not "after I explore it one more time." Today.
Step 3: The Core Function
Now you've cleared the noise. What's left?
For most solopreneurs I work with, there's one category of tool that's genuinely indispensable: your primary large language model. Your ChatGPT. Your Claude. Your Gemini.
This is the tool that helps you think. Draft. Research. Strategize. The one that's there at 11 PM when you're staring at a blank page and need to work through an idea.
That's your anchor. That's the one you keep.
Step 4: The Integration Principle
But here's where most people stop - and where they stay stuck.
They've got ChatGPT or Gemini. They use it for random stuff. They type in a question, get an answer, copy-paste it into a doc, and move on.
That's not a system. That's just a very expensive search engine.
The real question is: does this one tool integrate into the way you actually work? Can it connect to your Notion? Your email? Your project management system? Can it learn your voice, your business, your specific needs?
Because the goal isn't to have the fanciest AI tool. The goal is to have one AI teammate who knows you so well that working with them feels effortless.
FROM TOOL TO TEAMMATE
This is where everything changes.
When you stop collecting tools and start building a system, you unlock what I call the Practical, Human-Centered Application of AI.
Instead of five generic assistants who are mediocre at everything, you have one hyper-specialized digital teammate who is brilliant at the things you actually need.
Think about it this way: if you hired a human assistant, you wouldn't have them start from scratch every single day, right? You wouldn't walk in and say, "Hi, nice to meet you. Here's what our company does. Here's my writing style. Here's the project I'm working on."
You'd train them once. You'd give them context. You'd build shared knowledge over time.
That's exactly what you need to do with your AI.
Here's what that looked like for Kate: We took the LLM she was already paying for - ChatGPT - and we turned it into a real business consultant. Not by switching tools. Not by paying for some premium tier. By giving it the right instructions, the right context, and the right role.
Suddenly, she had someone she could bounce ideas off at midnight. Someone who understood her business model, her target audience, her constraints. Someone who could help her make decisions, not just generate content.
That's the difference between a tool and a teammate.
And here's the beautiful part: when you have that one solid foundation, everything else gets easier. You're not managing ten chaotic subscriptions. You're designing one elegant, cohesive system.
That's the Systems Mindset. That's what prepares you to actually scale.
Because the bottleneck in your business isn't that you don't have enough tools. The bottleneck is that you're spending all your time managing tools instead of growing your business.
CONVERSATION
So here's what I want you to do after this episode.
First, run that four-step audit. Create that simple spreadsheet or Notion database. Look at what you're actually paying for and what you're actually using. Be ruthless. Cancel the dead weight.
Second, identify your one anchor tool - the LLM you're going to go deep with.
And third - this is the critical step - turn that tool into a real teammate.
I've built something specifically for this. It's called the AI Work Buddy, and it's a complete framework for taking whatever LLM you're already paying for and transforming it into a strategic partner who actually knows your business.
It works with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini - whatever you've got. The tool doesn't matter. The training does.
You can grab it at theaihat.com/aiworkbuddy. I'll put that link in the show notes.
But before you go, I want to hear from you: If you had to cancel just one subscription right now to free up budget and mental space, which tool would it be and why?
Send me a message. Hit reply to my next email. Drop a comment wherever you're listening to this.
Because the conversation doesn't end when the episode does. That's where the real work begins.
Until next time, welcome to the grid.
