how i use AI to run my online business in 2 hours a day

I want to be upfront about something: I don't work on my online business all day.

Some days I barely open my laptop. And yet products sell, customers get helped, content goes out, and money comes in. I'm not bragging — I'm telling you this because I spent the first year of my online business grinding 6-hour days and getting worse results than I get now in two hours.

The difference is AI. Specifically, using it as the operating layer of my business rather than just a writing assistant.

Here's exactly how my days break down, and the tools I use to make this work.

Why 2 Hours Is Actually Enough

Before I get into the workflow, let me dispel the idea that more time = more output.

When I worked long hours, I was filling time with low-leverage tasks: tweaking product descriptions, manually answering the same customer questions, writing and rewriting content that didn't move the needle. It felt like work. It wasn't.

The 2-hour version of my business exists because I've automated or eliminated most of that. AI handles the repetitive, predictable parts. I show up to make decisions and do the work that genuinely requires a human with judgment.

The math: if you have 10 hours of potential work per day and 8 of them are automatable, you only need to show up for 2.

The Morning Block: 30 Minutes

I start every morning with a 30-minute review block.

First thing: I open the dashboard on MadeThis — the platform I use to run my digital product store — and check overnight activity. Sales, customer messages, refund requests. The AI handles most customer questions automatically. I review anything it flagged as needing my input, which is usually one or two items per day.

Then I check my analytics: which pages drove traffic yesterday, which products got views but not sales (conversion problem), which blog posts picked up new search clicks (content working).

This takes about 20 minutes. The remaining 10 I use to respond to any partner emails or jot down content ideas while they're fresh.

That's the entire morning block. Done.

The Content Block: 60 Minutes (3x per week)

Three times a week, I spend an hour on content. This drives the majority of my traffic and, over time, the majority of my sales.

My workflow:

1. Choose a keyword. I keep a running list in Notion of search terms relevant to my niche. I pick one with decent search volume and low competition.
2. Draft with AI. I open ChatGPT and ask it to outline a 1,000-word article targeting that keyword in my voice. I give it context about who I write for and what angle I typically take.
3. Edit and add my perspective. The AI draft is maybe 70% of the way there. I spend 15–20 minutes making it sound like me, adding specific stories or data points, and sharpening the angle.
4. Publish. I upload to my site, add the meta description, schedule or publish.

One hour. One article. Multiply that by 12 articles per month and you're running a content machine on the side while keeping a day job.

The Product Block: 60 Minutes (Once per week)

Once a week I spend an hour on product-related work. This rotates:

• Week 1: Review an existing product's performance. Is the conversion rate acceptable? Is the description doing its job? I often use AI to rewrite a product description and A/B test it.
• Week 2: Work on a new product outline or draft. AI is incredibly useful here for brainstorming, outlining, and drafting sections.
• Week 3: Promotional push — write a short email to my list or a social post highlighting a product.
• Week 4: Review analytics and adjust strategy.

That's it. One hour a week of product work, rotating through what actually matters.

What Runs Without Me

Here's the honest part: most of my business runs without my direct involvement.

• Checkout and delivery — MadeThis handles this automatically. A customer buys, the file is delivered instantly, the receipt goes out. I don't touch it.
• Customer support — The AI inside MadeThis handles 80%+ of customer questions. "Where's my file?" "Can I use this commercially?" Standard stuff. I review the queue once a day and it's usually empty.
• Email sequences — I've written welcome and upsell email sequences once. They run automatically for every new customer.
• SEO traffic — Articles I wrote six months ago still bring in readers every day. I don't maintain them.

The Compounding Effect

This is the part that's hard to explain until you're inside it.

Every piece of content I write today adds to a permanent library that drives traffic indefinitely. Every product I publish today will get discovered by someone three years from now. The MadeThis platform means each sale happens without my involvement.

I didn't feel the compounding in month one. Or month three. Around month five, I started to notice it. By month eight, the traffic and sales my past work was generating started to exceed what I was adding in any given week.

That's when 2 hours a day starts to feel like cheating.

What I'd Tell Myself at the Start

If I could go back to when I was grinding 6-hour days:

1. Stop doing tasks that don't require a human. If a robot can do it, automate it now.
2. One article, one product at a time. Batching creates quality debt. Do the thing fully, then move to the next.
3. Use a platform that removes operational friction. The reason MadeThis works for me isn't any one feature — it's that I never lose 30 minutes debugging a checkout flow or figuring out how to resend a download link.
4. Protect your 2 hours like they're your only resource. Because they are.

The goal of a digital product business isn't to work less. It's to work on the right things. AI makes it possible to spend 2 hours on the right things and let everything else run on its own.

That's the actual game. Once you're playing it, there's no going back.

If you want to see how I set up my store and product workflow, read my MadeThis review or check out the compare page to see how it stacks up against other platforms.