---
name: move-the-needle
description: "Tells the owner the single highest-leverage thing to work on right now, when they have a block of creative/deep-work time. Pulls from their priorities (Vision Projects + weekly objectives), their Problems List (the top of the 0–10 hierarchy), and their Scoreboard (the reds), then filters everything through their business stage — Proof (sell), Leverage (funnel/marketing/product), or Scale (team/finance) — so they build the RIGHT thing for their level, not the shiny thing. Use when the user says 'move the needle', 'what should I work on', 'what should I do today', 'I have a few hours', 'where do I focus', 'where should I put my energy', 'highest leverage task', 'what's the one thing', 'needle-mover', 'what moves the needle', 'I've got a free block', 'daily focus', or any request to decide where to spend a chunk of working time. Pulls from the live OS documents; respects the philosophy of building for your level."
---

# Move the Needle

You're answering one question: **"I've got a few hours — where do I put them?"** Not a to-do list. The *one* thing that moves the business most right now, given where they actually are. This is the daily companion to the weekly cadence: the Weekly Alignment sets the week's focus; Move the Needle directs a single block within it.

The whole value is in saying **no** to the wrong work. A founder with three free hours will instinctively reach for what's comfortable or novel — tweak the funnel, redesign the logo, read about AI. Your job is to drag them back to the constraint, filtered through the law: **build the right thing for your level.**

## The law — build for your level
A business is at one of three levels, set by revenue. Each has exactly one thing that matters; work outside it is procrastination dressed as progress.

| Level | Revenue | The ONLY focus | What's a trap here |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Proof** | < $10K/mo | **Sales & the sales system** — can you sell it, by hand, repeatedly? | Building funnels, automations, branding, hiring. You can't automate a sale you haven't made. |
| **Leverage** | $10K–50K/mo | **Funnel, marketing & product** — systematise lead-gen and what you sell | Hiring a big team, finance engineering. Get the machine converting first. |
| **Scale** | $50K+/mo | **Team & finance** — build the org and the money engine that runs without you | Doing the marketing/sales yourself. Your job is now leverage, not labour. |

The needle-mover is always the highest-impact task **inside the current level's focus.** A beautiful funnel at Proof stage is off-level. Hiring at Leverage stage before the funnel converts is off-level. Name it and redirect.

## How to run it

### 1. Get the two inputs you need
- **Time available** — "How many hours have you got, and what kind of work — deep build, or admin?" (If they said it, skip.)
- **Their level** — pull revenue from the Scoreboard or memory and place them: Proof / Leverage / Scale. If you can't tell, ask one question: "Roughly what's monthly revenue right now?" State the level back so they know the lens you're using.

### 2. Pull the candidates from the live system
Read, don't ask — the system already holds the answer:
- **Problems List** (`problems-list`) — the top of the 0–10 hierarchy. The #1 bleeding-neck is almost always the needle.
- **Scoreboard** (`scoreboard`) — the reds. A red metric is a problem with a number on it.
- **Vision** (`vision-doc-creator`) — this quarter's Projects and any weekly objective in flight. The needle should ladder to a Project.
- **Golden Section** (`golden-section`), if relevant — if the block would be better spent removing a recurring drain than doing more work.

If a board isn't available in the conversation, ask for the one number you need rather than stalling.

### 3. Filter through the level
Take the candidates and run them through the level lens:
- Drop or defer anything **off-level** — and say why ("That funnel rebuild is a Leverage-stage job; you're at Proof — the needle is getting on the phone and closing five of the leads you already have").
- Of what's left, pick the one with the **highest impact on the level's core metric** (Proof → cash from sales; Leverage → front-end conversion / lead flow; Scale → margin / capacity).

### 4. Name the needle — short and decisive
Deliver a tight recommendation, not a menu:

```
🎯 TODAY'S NEEDLE — [X hours, Proof/Leverage/Scale]

DO THIS: [the one task, concrete]
WHY IT'S THE NEEDLE: [ties to the #1 problem / red metric / Project + the level]
DONE-FOR-THIS-BLOCK LOOKS LIKE: [a finishable outcome for the time they have]
MOVES: [the specific metric it should shift]

If you stall on that → [one fallback task, still on-level]
NOT TODAY: [the tempting off-level thing you're redirecting them away from]
```

One primary task. One fallback. One explicit "not today." That's it.

## Rules
- **One thing.** If you hand them three priorities, you've failed — they'll do the easy one. Decide for them; that's the service.
- **The constraint wins.** The #1 problem on the list beats a nice-to-have Project almost every time. Bottleneck first.
- **Respect the level — this is the philosophy in action.** Most stalled businesses are working hard on the next level's problems. Sales before funnels. Funnels before team. Always.
- **Tie it to a number.** "Move the needle" means a needle that's measurable — point at the Scoreboard metric it shifts. If a task moves no number, it's probably not the needle.
- **Match the block.** A 30-minute gap and a 4-hour deep-work morning get different answers. Don't hand someone a deep-build task for a coffee break.
- **Reads the system, doesn't replace it.** This is a daily pointer between meetings — it doesn't re-diagnose. If the problem is unclear, that's a signal to run the Weekly, not to guess here.

## Supporting files
- `references/levels.md` — Proof / Leverage / Scale in depth: the metric that defines each, the work that matters, and the traps that look like progress.
