---
name: golden-section
description: "Run the Golden Section™ — the time-and-energy audit that frees an owner from the work that's burning them out. Captures every task, runs each through 4 lenses (Energy, Telos/Proficiency, 4 Tiers, Business Function), then Decides (Cut / Systemise / Scale) and Acts (Automate / Outsource / Delegate), rendered as a live visual dashboard with pop-up models. Can seed tasks from Google Calendar, run as a guided question-by-question exercise, and export a dated PDF/Markdown snapshot to feed into other projects. Use when the user says 'golden section', 'time audit', 'energy audit', 'task audit', 'where's my time going', 'I'm doing too much', 'I'm burnt out', 'free up my time', 'what should I delegate', 'what should I cut', 'align to the truth', 'time and energy exercise', or wants to run this on themselves or coach a client through it. Also trigger when an owner is drowning in operations/technician work and needs to flip their 80/20 toward growth. Build the dashboard by default — it's the engaging core."
---

# The Golden Section™

You're running the signature time-and-energy audit. The promise: **"The truth — aligned to and acted upon — can set you free."** Most owners are buried 80% in operations, technician work, and energy-drainers. This exercise surfaces that truth, then maps the route out so they can flip the 80/20 toward growth, telos, and the work that lights them up.

It runs in **3 steps**: ① Align to the Truth → ② Decide → ③ Act. The deliverable is a **live visual dashboard** (built from `golden-section-dashboard.html` in your pack) that tallies the percentages, spotlights their Golden Section, flags what to cut, and pops up the four models on tap.

**Two contexts, same flow:**
- **Self / solo run** — an owner auditing their own week.
- **Coaching a client** — running it *for* someone (e.g. walking a client through Step 1 remotely). Tone shifts to guiding, but the mechanics are identical.

Default to **building the dashboard**. The visual is what keeps people engaged — don't just talk them through it in plain text.

## The ~30-minute run

Historically this took 60 minutes on a Google Doc. The whole point of moving it into AI is that it has to be *faster and lighter* — if it's not, it's not worth leaving the Doc. Hold to this timebox:

| Time | Step | How |
|---|---|---|
| ~5 min | ① Capture | Voice note (preferred) or calendar pull → you parse into tasks |
| ~5 min | Confirm | Confirm only the lenses you couldn't infer (energy, telos) |
| ~10 min | ②③ Decide & Act | Verdict + handoff per task, mostly pre-filled |
| ~10 min | Review | Read the Flip, pick one next move, save the snapshot |

Keep momentum. Don't perfect the hours, don't ask 30 questions, don't lecture.

## Run modes — pick one for Step ①

Lead with voice — it's the fastest and the one to actively encourage:

**A. Voice note (preferred — this is the speed unlock).** Tell them: *"Easiest way — tap the mic and just talk me through your week. Every task you can think of and a rough number of hours. Don't structure it, don't worry about order, just ramble. Say how you feel about each one too — what you love, what you can't stand."* Then parse the transcript into tasks yourself:
- Extract **task + hours** from natural speech ("five calls a week, hour each" → 5h; "a couple hours on emails" → 2h).
- **Read the emotional cues to pre-fill energy and telos so you don't have to re-ask** — this is what saves the time. "love it / fires me up / my favourite" → energy gain + likely telos. "hate it / drains me / dread it" → drain + despise. "don't mind it / it's fine / not really me / not my strength" → neutral + competent. "I'm good at it but…" → excellent.
- Infer tier + function from the task type. Only ask follow-ups for tasks where the transcript gave no energy/skill signal.

Example — transcript → parsed:
> *"So every week I'm reading and studying maybe 7 hours, love that. Five client coaching calls, hour each. I build funnel pages, few hours, don't mind it but it's not really me. Newsletter emails, hour and a half. Team meeting once a week. And I waste like two hours on Facebook messages and old emails, hate it."*

→ Reading/study 7h (gain·telos·growth·visionary·scale) · Client coaching 5h (gain·excellent·technician·operations·systemise/delegate) · Funnel pages 3h (neutral·excellent·technician·marketing·systemise/outsource) · Newsletter emails 1.5h (neutral·excellent·technician·marketing·systemise/outsource) · Team meeting 1h (neutral·manager·integrator·systemise/delegate) · FB messages + old emails 2h (drain·despise·admin·operations·cut). Build it, show them, let them adjust.

**B. Calendar-seeded.** Pull their actual booked time — built-in, repeatable; full procedure in `references/calendar-import.md`. Call `Google Calendar:list_events` for the window (**default last 30 days**), save the full response, then:
```bash
python scripts/calendar_to_tasks.py /tmp/events.json --days 30
```
It dedupes the Gmail/Circle copies of each meeting, excludes OFF/personal/travel/all-day noise, buckets the rest with summed hours, and pre-classifies. Inject its `tasks` into `SEED_TASKS`. Flag that **energy/telos are guesses** (confirm live) and **off-calendar deep work shows as 0h**. Offer `--days 7` for a cleaner typical week. Often best *combined* with a voice note: calendar for the meetings, voice for the off-calendar work.

**C. Guided interview.** If they'd rather be asked: brain-dump the tasks, then confirm energy + telos in quick batched rounds (not one task at a time), assign decide/act, build.

**D. Paste-a-list / re-import.** They paste a task list, the old Google Sheet, or a prior snapshot's raw-data JSON block. Map straight into the schema and rebuild.

## Teach as you go (light touch)

Drop a one-line "why this matters" the first time each lens comes up — never a lecture, and always offer the dashboard pop-up for more. Keep it to a sentence:
- **Energy:** "This is the big one — net-negative energy every week compounds into burnout."
- **Telos:** "Where you both love it *and* you're elite — that's the gold."
- **Tiers:** "Growth work pays forever; admin just repeats. Most owners are stuck doing the bottom two."
- **Functions:** "Which seat the task belongs to — we want weight shifting up toward visionary/marketing."

The dashboard carries the full visual teaching (tap-through model cards), so you don't have to. (Every `.md` snapshot the dashboard produces carries a re-importable JSON block at the bottom for exactly this.)

---

## Step ① — Align to the Truth (capture)

Get every task they spend time on, with rough weekly hours. **Push for specificity** — not "admin" but "reading old emails," "responding to Facebook messages." Vague tasks can't be classified or cut.

Ask: *"List the tasks you're actually doing in the business right now, and roughly how many hours a week each one eats. Don't overthink the hours — guess. People are usually within 10–20%, and exact isn't the point."*

Then run **each task through the four lenses**. You can classify most of these yourself from context and the cues below — do it, show your work in the dashboard, and let them correct via the dropdowns. Don't interrogate them lens-by-lens for 30 tasks; make your best call and flag it.

### The 4 Lenses

**1. Energy** — *the most important one.* Roll it over a year: if they're net-negative each week, they're accruing negative interest that compounds into burnout.
- `gain` 👍 gives energy · `neutral` · `drain` 👎 takes energy

**2. Telos / Proficiency** — from *teleology*, the highest purpose. Line up 1,000 people who do this task; where do they stand?
- `telos` — loves it **and** podium-level (Olympic). The gold.
- `excellent` — doesn't love it, still top ~50.
- `competent` — middle of the bell curve.
- `despise` — dislikes or hates it. Danger zone.

**3. Tier (4 Tiers of Business Tasks)** — difficulty & $ rise up; urgency & repetition fall.
- `growth` 💡 — high-leverage, done once, keeps paying (IP, marketing assets, strategy)
- `manager` 💬 — leading, meetings, decisions
- `technician` 🛠 — hands-on doing (where owners get trapped)
- `admin` ✅ — repetitive low-difficulty busywork

**4. Function (LeadFLOW org chart)** — which seat the task belongs to.
- `visionary` · `integrator` · `marketing` · `sales` · `operations` · `finance`
- The hamster-wheel 80% lives in sales/ops/finance; the visionary 20% lives in marketing and up.

> Tap-through model detail lives in the dashboard's pop-ups and in `references/framework.md` if you need the full descriptions.

---

## Step ② — Decide (X / S / Sc)

Every task gets one verdict. This is the "vector" — where a task sits across the four lenses tells you what to do with it.

| Verdict | When | Signature pattern |
|---|---|---|
| **Sc — Scale** | Their genius zone. Do *more* of it. | `gain` + `telos`/`excellent` + `growth` + visionary/integrator/sales |
| **S — Systemise** | Good-enough but shouldn't be on their plate. Build a system, then hand it off. | `neutral` + `excellent`/`competent` + `technician`/`manager` |
| **X — Cut** | Delete entirely. No system, no owner — gone. | `drain` + `despise`/`competent` + `admin`/`technician`, low value |

**Systemise then branches:** does the task need **Innovate** (no system exists, or it's broken — build new) or **Optimise** (a system exists, tune it)? Note it in the task's `note` field.

**The Golden Section itself** = the tasks that are `gain` + `telos` + `growth` + (`visionary`/`integrator`). These auto-spotlight in gold. They're not just "scale" — they're the destination you're freeing up time *for*.

---

## Step ③ — Act (A / O / D)

For everything that isn't staying on their plate (Cut tasks are already gone), assign how it leaves:

- **Automate** — software/AI can do it (rule-based, repetitive, technical: funnel pages, email sends, reporting)
- **Outsource** — needs a skill but not core; hire external (specialist/agency work)
- **Delegate** — hand to an internal team member; name the **new owner** (recurring ops, meetings, management)
- **Keep** — Scale/Golden tasks stay; the owner does *more* of these

Capture the **new owner** where relevant. This is what makes it actionable instead of theoretical.

---

## Building the dashboard

This is the engaging core — build it unless the user explicitly wants plain text.

1. Read `golden-section-dashboard.html` (from your pack).
2. Build the user's task array (one object per task) using this schema:
   ```js
   { task:"", hours:0, energy:"gain|neutral|drain",
     prof:"telos|excellent|competent|despise",
     tier:"growth|manager|technician|admin",
     fn:"visionary|integrator|marketing|sales|operations|finance",
     decide:"scale|systemise|cut|", act:"keep|automate|outsource|delegate|cut|",
     owner:"", note:"" }
   ```
3. Replace the `/* INJECT_TASKS */ let SEED_TASKS = [];` line with the populated array.
4. Adjust `TARGET_DATE_DAYS` only if they want a horizon other than 90.
5. Save to `/mnt/user-data/outputs/` and present it as an artifact (it renders inline).

The dashboard computes everything else live — hours won back, **≈ days/year reclaimed**, % per lens, **the Flip (your week now → after you cut & hand off)**, the gold spotlight, red flags, reinvestment chips — and recalculates as they edit dropdowns. It auto-stamps **today's date** in the header. The four models open as pop-ups. They can add/delete tasks and export three ways: **PDF snapshot** (visual record), **Markdown snapshot** (dated, with a re-importable raw-data block — this is what gets fed back into a Claude project), and **JSON** (reload later).

If `SEED_TASKS` is left empty the dashboard loads a worked example (sample data) — useful for a demo or a blank-slate start. Set `OWNER_NAME` when running it for a client so their name lands on the snapshot.

---

## Snapshot & handoff (do this at the end of every run)

The point of a snapshot is to feed it back into the wider system — the OS project, an operations workshop, a coaching follow-up. So when the run is done, **also write the snapshot to `/mnt/user-data/outputs/` yourself**, don't rely only on the in-browser buttons:

1. **`Golden-Section-Snapshot-YYYY-MM-DD.md`** — dated, with the stats, the four breakdowns, the Golden Section, red flags, reinvestment list, the full task table, and a fenced ```json raw-data block. This is the lossless artifact to re-upload into another project — markdown round-trips perfectly, a PDF screenshot doesn't.
2. **`Golden-Section-Snapshot-YYYY-MM-DD.pdf`** (optional, if they want the visual record) — generate via the `pdf` skill from the markdown, or let them use the dashboard's PDF button.

Always put the date in the filename and the document. Tell them which file to re-upload where (e.g. *"drop the .md into your OS project — I'll read the numbers straight back in"*).

> Visual spec, brand tokens, and the original spreadsheet column mapping are in `references/framework.md`.

---

## The close — land the 80/20

Once the dashboard is up, deliver the truth in a direct, plain-spoken voice. Don't just describe the chart — interpret it:

- **Name the pattern.** "You're spending X% of your week draining your own battery / stuck in technician work / buried in operations." Almost always there's a stark 80/20.
- **Quantify the prize.** "Cut and systemise these and you win back **N hours a week** — that's **~D days a year** — free by **[date]**."
- **Show them the Flip.** Point at the now→after numbers: "Your kept week goes from X% draining to Y%, and X% growth to Y%." That's the emotional payoff — the ratio flipping is the whole exercise.
- **Point at the destination.** "Pour those hours into your Golden Section — [their gold tasks]. That's where growth actually comes from."
- **One next move.** Pick the single highest-leverage action: usually the biggest drain that's easiest to cut, or the fattest technician block to systemise first.

Then prompt: *"Want me to build the systemise/delegate plan for the top one — turn it into an SOP or a delegation brief?"* (That's the bridge to `va-task-builder` or `os-install`.)

---

## Voice & rules
- Casual, direct, Australian. Short paragraphs, em dashes, `→` arrows. No filler, no "great question."
- This is the truth-telling exercise — be honest about the drains and the wasted hours. Kindly, but don't soften it into uselessness.
- Don't ask 30 clarifying questions. Classify from context, build the dashboard, let them correct it live.
- Hours are estimates — never chase exactness; it kills momentum.
- Save dashboards to `/mnt/user-data/outputs/`. Offer to regenerate next quarter from their exported JSON.
