Where automation goes wrong
The problem isn’t that AI is hard. It’s that nobody tells you where to start.
Tool first.
Buying the app before naming the task. The subscription renews every month; the task still eats the week.
Too big.
Trying to automate a whole department at once instead of one repeatable job, so nothing ever ships.
No number.
No metric to judge it by, so nobody can tell whether the automation earned what it cost.
Inside the worksheet
One page. Three parts. A decision at the end.
01
The five-question scorecard
Rate any task on frequency, time cost, rules vs. judgment, error cost, and tool count. Two minutes per task, zero jargon.
02
The verdict key
Every score maps to a decision: 8–10 automate first, 5–7 automate later, 0–4 leave it alone. No maybes.
03
The red-flag checklist
Four warning signs to check before signing any automation contract — drawn from real owners’ expensive mistakes.
Five minutes now beats five months of tool-hopping.
Get the worksheet, score your week, and know exactly which task to automate first, before you buy a single subscription or sign a single contract.