You Know You Should Automate

You’ve read articles about automation, watched YouTube tutorials, and have even subscribed to 5+ tools.

But when you sit down to start automating, you stagnate and don’t know what to do. You’re too busy still figuring out which task to start with.

Email follow-ups? Social media? Invoicing? Customer service?

Trying to automate everything at once leads to unfinished workflows, tool overwhelm, and going nowhere. Don’t automate everything; automate the RIGHT thing.

The 3-Question Framework: How to Choose Which Task To Automate

For every task you consider automating, ask these 3 questions:

• How much time does this take weekly?
  • Track actual hours spent per week. Multiply by 52 to get annual time cost.
  • Example: 4.5 hours/week = 234 hours/year = £11,700 annual cost

• How complex is it to automate?
  • Rate on 1-10 scale. Start with easy tasks (1-4), save complex tasks (7-10) for later.
  • Easy: Email sequences, social scheduling
  • Hard: Sales negotiations, creative strategy

• What’s the cost of not automating?
  • Consider hidden costs: opportunity cost, error cost, stress cost, consistency cost.
  • Example: 10 hours on invoicing = 10 hours NOT spent on £10K in sales calls

The Scoring System

Score each task using the three questions based on these metrics from 0 to 10 points:

• Time Score:
  • 10+ hours/week = 10 points
  • 5-10 hours/week = 7 points
  • 2-5 hours/week = 4 points
  • Under 2 hours/week = 1 point
• Complexity Score:
  • Easy (1-3) = 10 points
  • Medium (4-6) = 5 points
  • Hard (7-10) = 1 point
• Impact Score:
  • Costs you revenue = 10 points
  • Causes frequent errors = 7 points
  • Creates stress = 4 points
  • Minor inconvenience = 1 point

Automation Comparison Example: Email Follow-Ups vs Monthly Reports

Email Follow-Ups:

• Time: 8 hours/week = 9 points
• Complexity: Easy = 10 points
• Impact: Lose sales without it = 10 points

Total: 29/30 (AUTOMATE FIRST)

Monthly Reports:

• Time: 0.5 hours/week = 1 point
• Complexity: Medium = 5 points
• Impact: Important but not urgent = 4 points

Total: 10/30 (AUTOMATE LATER)

How To Effectively Use This Framework

1. List all repetitive tasks consuming time (email, social media, invoices, support, etc.)
2. Score each by evaluating time, complexity, and impact
3. Rank by total score (high score=high priority)
4. Automate ONE at a time

Pick the one task that costs you time and revenue, but is easy to delegate, then you can move on to other automations.

The Final Take

You can’t automate everything at once, but you can definitely automate the right thing first.

Analyse each task, score based on key metrics, and start by automating one task.

Struggling to know which task to automate? Book a call with me and I’ll analyse your current tasks, and show you exactly where to start.

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