For each task below, estimate how many minutes your team spends on it each week. Add your own in the blank rows.
Don't overthink it — a rough estimate is fine.
| Task |
Who does it? |
Mins/week |
Still manual? (Y/N) |
| Pulling or building weekly reports | | | |
| Copying data between systems/spreadsheets | | | |
| Sending recurring emails or follow-ups | | | |
| Entering invoices or bills manually | | | |
| Creating proposals or quotes | | | |
| Scheduling or coordinating calendars | | | |
| Processing new leads or client intake | | | |
| Chasing overdue payments / reminders | | | |
| Updating spreadsheet trackers or dashboards | | | |
| Onboarding new clients or employees | | | |
| ________________ | | | |
| ________________ | | | |
Check every statement that applies to your business right now.
- We do the same thing the same way every week — manually
- We use multiple tools that don't talk to each other
- Things fall through the cracks when someone is out
- Reporting takes too long and happens too infrequently
- Team members spend time on tasks below their pay grade
- We've had data entry errors that cost us real money
- New employees take too long to get up to speed
- Invoicing or billing is slower than it should be
- We pay for software we don't fully use
- We've talked about "fixing this" for months but haven't
- Growth is creating more operational chaos, not less
- I don't know exactly where my team's time goes each week
Score:
1–3 checked → some quick wins available.
4–7 checked → significant automation opportunity.
8+ checked → operations are limiting your growth.
Take the manual tasks from Section 1 and place them in the quadrants below.
High frequency = happens multiple times per week. High complexity = requires judgment or multiple steps.
⬆ Build First
High Frequency · Low Complexity
These are your easiest wins. Automate these first.
⚡ High Value
High Frequency · High Complexity
Worth building — but needs careful design. Second priority.
🔵 Nice to Have
Low Frequency · Low Complexity
Automate if cheap to build. Otherwise, document the process.
⏸ Defer
Low Frequency · High Complexity
Not worth automating now. Document and revisit later.
Use this to translate your time audit into dollars. It's often a bigger number than people expect.
A. Total manual task hours per week (from Section 1)
hrs/wk
B. Average hourly cost of the people doing this work
×
$/hr
C. Hours per year (A × 50 working weeks)
×
hrs/yr
Annual cost of manual work (A × B × 50)
= $
/yr
5 hrs/wk
At $30/hr = $7,500/yr in recoverable time
10 hrs/wk
At $40/hr = $20,000/yr in recoverable time
20 hrs/wk
At $50/hr = $50,000/yr in recoverable time
What to Do With This
1
Circle the 2–3 tasks with the most time spent that are still fully manual. Those are your first automation targets.
2
Note the annual cost you calculated in Section 4. That's the ceiling on what you should invest in fixing it.
3
Look at your Q1 quadrant (high frequency, low complexity). These can often be automated in a few hours for under $100/month in tools.
Want someone to build it for you? Book a free 20-minute discovery call at brookshearbooks.com — bring this worksheet and we'll map out exactly what's automatable and what it's worth.