Where is my small business wasting time? A five-minute check

You don't need a consultant to find where your office loses time. You need a pen, five minutes, and the person who does the paperwork. This is a checklist for that. It finds the pile. It doesn't size a build, and it can't tell you how many hours you'd get back.

The idea is simple. Most office work that can be automated falls into three kinds. We call them the three signs: Retyping, Remembering, and Waiting. Walk through the shop once, looking for each.

Sign 1: Retyping

This is the big one. Look for anything typed twice.

Write down each one in a line. Name the two places the same information lives. If you can say "it's typed here, then again there," that's a candidate.

• An order or request arrives by email, and someone types it into the books.
• A number in one spreadsheet gets typed into another program.
• Notes from a site visit get typed again into a quote.
• A form is filled out, then the same facts go on an invoice.

Sign 2: Remembering

Look for anything that only works because someone remembers.

For each one, note who gets hurt when it's missed. A forgotten reminder that costs a customer matters more than one that costs a shrug.

• Which job is waiting on material, and which quote went out last week.
• The follow-up call that happens only if one person thinks of it.
• The notebook in the truck, the sticky note on the monitor, the spreadsheet only one person understands.
• Anything that falls apart when that person is out sick.

Sign 3: Waiting

Look for anything that sits until a person has time.

Waiting is the hardest to see, because nobody is working on it. Ask: what did a customer wait on this week? Write down the thing they waited on, not who was late.

• A quote that waits days because someone has to work it up between other jobs.
• Emails that pile up until the afternoon.
• An approval that stalls because the one person who can give it is busy.

What to do with the list

Count the lines under each sign. Then pick the one line that annoys the shop most. That's the job to look at first. The rest can wait.

Then ask three questions about that one job.

Stop if the honest fix is a different habit, a shared calendar, or a paper form. If the answer is "leave this alone," the check did its job. Not everything needs a program.

If the job is worth a closer look, there are two ways to go. Look at what we build to see if it matches. Or read how it works: we build the first automation on your own accounts, you use it for 30 days, and you pay only if you keep it.

For a shop that makes or sells things, the usual first job is the emailed order that gets typed into the books. There's more on that on our page for manufacturers and distributors.

• Is it the same every time, or does it change from one case to the next? Repeating work is easier to automate.
• What happens when it goes wrong? If a mistake is cheap to fix, it's a good first job.
• Who would check the result? Keep a person in the loop for anything that touches a customer or your books.

What five minutes can't do

A five-minute check is a first look. It doesn't do these things:

Treat the list as a place to start a conversation. If a line on it is bugging you, tell us the job. We'll look at the setup you already have and tell you honestly whether it's worth building, or whether to leave it alone.

• It doesn't tell you how much time or money a fix would save. That needs someone to watch the work and measure it.
• It doesn't tell you whether your software can be connected. That depends on which programs you run and which versions.
• It doesn't catch work that nobody thinks of as work. The tasks people do without noticing are the ones that hide.
• It isn't a full audit. Anything that reaches your customers' data or your money deserves a longer look.