Exercise 1: The Repetition Audit

Time: 2 days
What you'll produce: A list of repetitive tasks from your work

Instructions

Starting now and for the next two days, as you do your actual work, keep a simple running list. Every time you catch yourself doing something repetitive—copying data, filling a form, writing something similar to what you wrote yesterday, responding to an email with one of your standard responses—write it down.

Don't overthink it. Just notice.

Examples of what to write down: - "Copied data from our analytics tool into a Google Sheet" - "Answered a customer question I've answered 5 times this week" - "Formatted a report into a specific template" - "Logged timesheets into our HR system" - "Extracted info from an email and added it to a spreadsheet" - "Routed an inquiry to the right person based on what it was about" - "Updated a status in our project management tool" - "Wrote a status email that's similar to last week's"

At the end of two days, look at your list and categorize each item:

• R — This is a real procedure (same steps every time, predictable trigger)
• D — This requires judgment or decision-making each time
• M — It's both (most knowledge work is)

For items marked M, ask: "Is roughly 80% of this procedural, with maybe 20% requiring judgment?"

Circle the items where the answer is yes. These are your automation candidates.

You should end up with 5-10 items circled. If you have fewer, you might not have been watching yourself closely. If you have more, great—more options.