When people hear "automation", they often imagine a big software project. In a small organization, the best first automations are the opposite: small, boring and repeated every week. Here is a simple exercise to find yours, in about an hour.
Step 1: List what comes back every week
Ask each person on your team to write down the tasks they do at least once a week that feel repetitive. No filter at this stage. Typical answers: forwarding requests to the right person, chasing unanswered emails, copying information from a form into a spreadsheet, writing the same kind of reply, preparing the weekly report.
Step 2: Estimate the time
For each task, note two numbers: how many times per week, and how many minutes each time. Multiply. A task done 20 times a week for 5 minutes is more than an hour and a half a week, or close to 80 hours a year. You will be surprised by what adds up.
Step 3: Apply the simple automation test
A good first automation has three parts:
- One clear trigger: a form is submitted, an email arrives, a date is reached.
- One main action: summarize, sort, draft, remind, copy.
- One result delivered: a message to the right person, a line in a spreadsheet, a draft ready to review.
If you cannot describe the task this way, it is probably not a good first candidate.
Step 4: Remove what should stay human
Some tasks are repetitive but should not be automated: anything that decides about a person, anything involving confidential information without an approved tool, and anything where a mistake would be hard to undo. For these, AI can still help prepare the work, but a person decides.
Rule of thumb: automate the preparation, keep the decision human. A draft reply that someone approves in ten seconds is a huge win. A reply sent automatically to the wrong client is not.
Step 5: Pick three
Rank the remaining tasks by time saved and pick the top three. Ideally, choose tasks from different people, so the whole team sees the benefit. Then measure the time spent before and after. That number is what will convince your team, and your board, to go further.
Three examples that often come up
- A website form request is summarized and sent to the right person with a draft reply.
- A reminder goes out automatically when a request stays unanswered for two days.
- A weekly activity summary is drafted from your spreadsheet and checked before it is sent.
This exercise is exactly how we choose the three automations in AI-Ready 30. If you want to do it with us, the free 30-minute AI check is a good start: we will list and rank your tasks together.