How to Use AI to Create a Screen-Free Hour

ai challenges Mar 18, 2026

PROMPT This AI Challenge

"From Enterprise Funnels to One‑Click Sales: One Founder Putting AI to Work" featuring Erik Archer Smith

Every episode of the PROMPT This podcast includes an AI Challenge for the audience. Follow the instructions below to complete this episode's challenge.

This Week's Challenge: The Screen-Free AI Hour

AI is usually marketed as a way to spend more time on screens. More dashboards. More tabs. More notifications.

But the real opportunity may be the opposite. AI can do the planning so you can do the living.

Our guest Erik Archer Smith discovered this accidentally. A broken box of crayons and a five-year-old who needed something to do led him to build a tool that uses AI to generate printable activities for kids. No apps. No accounts. No data stored.

The lesson goes far beyond parenting.

AI can help create structured moments where you step away from screens entirely.

This challenge tests that idea across three areas of life: family, personal time, and work.

The AI Challenge: The Screen-Free AI Hour

Time Required: 30–60 minutes

Tools Needed:

Any AI chat tool
Printer, paper and crayons or colored pens

Step 1: Replace One Kid Screen Moment

Many families default to handing a device to a child during idle moments.

Instead, use a new AI coloring book service to create a printable activity tailored to your child. Or for you. Coloring can be a very soothing activity for a stressed adult.

Go to ABCme.ai.

Click on "Make a Book"
Create an account
Choose a topic your child loves
Upload a photo if desired and generate printable activities or coloring pages.
Print the pages and use them during a moment where a screen would normally appear.

Restaurants, travel, waiting rooms, or quiet afternoons all work well.

The goal is simple: swap the too typical digital distraction with something tactile.

Step 2: Let AI Plan a Walk

This version is for you.

Open any AI tool and use this prompt:

Give me a 20-minute walking route starting from my home that includes something interesting to see.

Read the route once.

Then put the phone away.

Walk the route without checking messages, notifications, or directions again.

AI does the planning.

You do the experiencing.

Step 3: Run a One-Hour No-Screen Work Block

Most workdays start with a laptop and never leave it. Now let's look at it through a different lens.

Ask AI to structure one hour of work that requires no screen.

Use this prompt:

Create a one-hour work plan I can complete without a computer. Include 4–6 tasks I can do with only paper, pen, or printed materials.

Examples AI often generates:

Outline a presentation
Sketch a product concept
Map a marketing campaign
List customer objections
Draft a sales narrative

Write the plan on paper or print it. Then step away from your desk. Work through the hour somewhere without devices nearby.

What AI Will Immediately Surface

1. How Often Screens Are the Default

Many “quick fixes” in daily life involve handing someone a device.

AI can create alternatives quickly.

2. How Much Planning Screens Actually Do

Often the screen is not needed for the activity itself.

It is simply organizing the activity.

AI can do that part in seconds.

3. How Powerful Analog Thinking Still Is

Some of the best thinking happens with pen and paper.

AI can structure that thinking without requiring a digital workflow.

Why This Matters

For kids, AI can create screen-free learning moments.

For individuals, AI can turn a walk into an experience instead of a notification parade.

For teams, AI can structure offline thinking time that improves the quality of work.

The goal is not fewer tools.

It is better moments.

AI Prompts

Final Thought

The biggest misconception about AI is that it pulls us deeper into screens. Used correctly, it can do the opposite. AI can plan the activity, structure the work, and generate the materials.

Then the best thing you can do is close the laptop and step away.