Resources · Tool
The 45-Minute Audit
A workflow audit any owner can run this week. No software, no consultant required. Forty-five minutes and you will know your first automation project.
How to use this: Read through it once. Then block 45 minutes on your calendar, pull the materials below, and work through the four steps. The output is a ranked list of automation candidates with one clear winner at the top.
What you need
A pen, a notebook, and access to your calendar plus the calendars of your two or three highest-leverage staff members. That is it.
The four steps
1. Pull last week's calendar
Print it or open it on your screen. Do the same for two or three staff members whose time costs you the most or matters most to your operation.
2. Highlight every block of recurring work
Anything that happens every week. Not project work, not one-off meetings. Repeated workflows. Status reports, posting routines, intake calls, data exports, sales follow-ups, billing prep.
3. Mark the ones with predictable inputs
Of those highlighted blocks, mark the ones where the inputs are predictable. Forms, emails, spreadsheets, the same four questions from clients every time. If you could write down what comes in and what goes out in one sentence each, that workflow makes the cut.
4. Pick the one with the most weekly hours behind it
The one where automation saves the most time per week, every week, is your first project. That is it. The audit is done.
Worksheet
Use the table below as you go. Fill it in by hand, in a doc, or in a spreadsheet, whichever is fastest for you.
| Workflow | Who runs it | Hours / week | Inputs predictable? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Common winners
In my experience running this with around a dozen SMBs, the first project is almost never the one the owner expected. The patterns that come up again and again:
Client onboarding
Intake forms, document generation, the kickoff email sequence.
Lead enrichment
Going from a name and a company to a useful first-touch.
Recurring reports
The Monday metrics email or the weekly client status update.
Job postings
Multi-channel publishing where the same content goes to four or five places.
Approval routing
Anything that bounces between two people via email until somebody says yes.
Inbox triage
Sorting, tagging, and routing inbound email or form submissions.
After the audit
Your audit is done. The top row of your worksheet is your first project.
Path 1 · Build it yourself
Hand the worksheet to your team.
If you have an engineer, developer, or in-house ops person who builds workflow automations, the worksheet is enough. They'll know what to do.
Path 2 · Get a second pair of eyes
Bring it to a free 30-minute call.
You walk out with a written blueprint: what to build first, what's realistic in 60 days, what to skip, and what an engagement would cost. The plan is yours either way. No deck, no pitch.
Book the call →Want help running the audit?
Bring your worksheet to a free 30-minute evaluation. You walk away with a written blueprint, no pitch.