Still manually booking meetings? Posting social media one post at a time? Chasing overdue invoices yourself?
It’s not the big strategic work slowing you down. It’s the small, repeatable admin tasks that “only take a few minutes.” Do them daily or weekly and suddenly they’re costing you hours.
And it’s not just time, it’s also headspace. Every time you switch between tasks, your brain burns energy adjusting. That constant context switching is exhausting.
The good news is you don’t need a full systems overhaul. You just need to automate the right things.
Here are 10 tasks you can automate this month.
1. Calendar Booking and Confirmations
Stop going back and forward trying to find a time that works.
Use tools like Calendly or Microsoft Bookings to:
Let people book straight into your calendar
Automatically send confirmation emails
Add Zoom or Teams links
Block the time out in your calendar
Notify your team if needed
Set it up once. Never manually coordinate again.
2. Lead Capture Into Your CRM
When someone fills in a form or downloads a free resource, they should automatically:
Be added to your CRM
Be tagged based on their action
Be added to your email list
Trigger a welcome sequence
Tools like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and HubSpot handle this natively. No manual data entry required.
3. Welcome Email Sequences
When someone joins your list or becomes a client, silence is awkward.
Automate a sequence that:
Introduces your business
Sets expectations
Shares next steps
Highlights services
Makes them feel valued
This builds trust from day one without you manually sending emails.
4. Proposal Accepted Triggers
When a client signs a proposal, multiple things usually need to happen.
Instead of doing them manually, automate:
Internal notifications
Client welcome emails
Invoice creation in Xero
Task creation in your project management tool
Folder creation in Dropbox
Tools like Better Proposals, Proposify, or PandaDoc can trigger these workflows.
5. Lead Follow-Ups
When someone submits an enquiry or books a discovery call, they should instantly receive:
A confirmation email
Next steps
Helpful information or FAQs
Then schedule automated follow-ups and assign tasks to yourself or your team.
This keeps leads warm without relying on memory.
6. Social Media Scheduling
Posting daily is draining, and can quickly fall to the bottom of your to-do list.
Batch your content and schedule it in advance using:
Meta Business Suite
Later
Buffer
You remove daily pressure and reduce context switching.
7. Invoice Reminders and Payment Follow-Ups
Stop manually chasing late payments.
Xero allows you to:
Send automatic reminders before due dates
Send overdue notices
Escalate reminder tone
Send thank-you emails after payment
This protects cash flow without awkward manual follow-ups.
8. Expense Matching and Receipt Filing
Use Hubdoc with Xero to:
Photograph receipts
Auto-match transactions
Pre-fill reconciliation entries
Xero’s AI now learns your patterns and auto-reconciles common transactions.
Less manual bookkeeping. Fewer errors.
9. Internal Alerts for Key Actions
Want to know when a sale comes in?
Set up Slack or Teams notifications for:
New leads
Signed proposals
Sales
Reviews
This keeps everyone aligned and removes the need to constantly check systems.
10. Feedback and Testimonial Collection
When a project wraps up, automatically send:
A thank-you email
A feedback form
A request for a Google review
No more forgetting to ask.
A Bonus Worth Mentioning
Xero’s new AI feature, JAX (Just Ask Xero), is learning how you reconcile transactions and can begin auto-reconciling simple, repetitive entries for you.
You still review it. But the heavy lifting reduces over time.
Not so scary, right?
You don’t need to automate everything this week. Pick one task, set it up, and experience what it feels like when something runs without you.
That small shift creates momentum. And momentum is how you stop drowning in admin and start thinking strategically again.
