I have a confession: I'm lazy. Wait, before you close the tab, let me explain. I'm not "lie on the couch and watch Netflix all day" lazy (although that has its place too). I'm smart lazy.
Bill Gates once said he'd always choose a lazy person to do a hard job, because a lazy person will find the easiest, fastest way to do it. I live by that motto. In business today, working hard isn't enough anymore. You have to work smart. And working smart means you stop wasting your precious time on tasks a robot can do in 3 seconds, without mistakes.
I meet a lot of business owners who are proud of "working around the clock". To me? That's not something to be proud of, it's a sign of inefficient management. If you do the same manual action more than twice a day, you have a problem. You're spending energy (which, as you know, is a very limited resource for me) on nonsense.
So if you also want to be "smart lazy" and make room for the things that actually bring in money (or just go to the beach), here's a shopping list of 5 processes you need to get off your hands, yesterday:
1. The exhausting scheduling dance
How many emails and WhatsApp messages do you exchange to set up one Zoom meeting? "Are you available Tuesday at 10?", "No, but maybe Wednesday at 2?", "Wednesday's taken, what about Thursday morning?". Enough. It wears out your soul.
The fix: a booking tool (like Calendly or Cal.com) synced with your calendar. You send a link, the other side picks a time when you're available, and that's it. The meeting is in your calendar, Zoom link included. No pointless ping-pong. (Personally, I won't book a meeting any other way, because I don't have the energy to work out time differences or remember when my doctor's appointment is.)
2. Welcoming a new client (onboarding)
Closed a deal? Congratulations. Now the mess begins: send a contract, wait for the signature, send a deposit invoice, send a "welcome" email with all the important links, open a folder in Drive... Doing it by hand every time is a sure recipe for forgetting something, or for sending an email with the previous client's name in it (yes, it's embarrassing, but that's how it goes when we're tired).
The fix: an automation that kicks in the moment you mark the deal as "closed" in your CRM. The system sends the contract for digital signature on its own, sends an invoice the moment it's signed, and then a polished welcome email. The client gets an amazing service experience, and you didn't lift a finger.
3. Chasing payments (collections)
There's nothing I hate more than chasing money I'm owed. It's unpleasant, it feels petty, and it burns precious time. Sending a "hi, just a reminder that the invoice is due today" email is draining.
The fix: most bookkeeping systems today allow basic automation. Set up a series of emails: a friendly reminder two days before the due date, a "today's the day" reminder, and a slightly less friendly reminder two days after it's late. The robot plays "bad cop", and you stay nice.
4. Copy-pasting data (data entry)
A client filled in the lead form on your website? Great. Now you copy their name and phone number into Excel? And then copy them again into your phone to send a WhatsApp? Stop that right now.
The fix: every form on your website has to connect directly to your CRM or your lead spreadsheet. The client clicked "send"? Their details show up on your end, neatly organized, and maybe they even get an automatic "we got your message" text. Copy-paste is so 2010.
5. Collecting expense invoices for your accountant
The end of the month comes, and you start digging through your email for invoices from Google, Facebook, and that editing software subscription. Download the PDF, save it in a folder, send it to the accountant. That's at least an hour or two of frustration every month.
The fix: there are tools that scan your email, find invoices on their own, and send them straight into your accountant's system. You don't have to do anything except make sure there's money in the bank to pay the VAT.
The bottom line
Automation isn't a dirty word, and it isn't meant to replace you. It's meant to release you from the chains of the grunt work, so you can be creative, strategic and human. Start by picking one process from this list, the one that weighs on you the most, and automate it this week. You'll thank me later.
