Before you build anything, you need to know what your work consists of. Not as you remember it, but as it looks on paper. The exercise takes fifteen minutes and gives you two things: a number, and a ranking.
1. Write down everything that repeats
Everything you do more often than about once a month. Don't filter, and don't tidy up. Go through the areas one at a time: delivery and client work, marketing and content, sales and follow-up, admin and finance, and the rest, including the things at home.
2. Put hours and an owner on every line
For every task: how often does it come up, how many hours a week, and who runs it today: you, someone else, or a system? Be honest. If the answer is "it depends" or "it runs, but I check it every time", the owner is nobody.
| Task | How often | Hours/week | Me · Someone else · Nobody |
|---|---|---|---|
| e.g. following up on inquiries | daily | 3 | Nobody |
| e.g. the week's posts | weekly | 4 | Me |
Now add up the hours in every row where the owner is "nobody". That number is how many hours a week your business runs on you remembering things.
That number is the reason to build systems.
3. Pick the first three with four questions
Take your biggest "nobody" rows and give each of them 1 to 5 points on four questions:
- Repetition. How often does the task come back?
- Time. How long does it take each time?
- Does it need me? Could a well-briefed employee take it? (5 = yes, easily)
- Risk. What happens if a first draft is a bit off? (5 = nothing, I fix it)
The highest total score is built first. A task with a risk score of 1 is not the one to learn on.
4. Give your three a job title
Not "answer emails", but a title you could put on a business card: The Follow-up Assistant. The Week Planner. The Receipt Bookkeeper. When the system has a job title, you know exactly what it is hired to do, and what it is not.
Your number one is ready to be built. Next step: Build your first agent.
