# The AI Automation Prioritization Worksheet

### From the OpsJuice Masterclass: *AI Automation for Small Business: Save 20+ Hours a Week* · by Adrien Harrison

Everything from the talk, in one working document: your North Star, your task inventory, the domino scorer, the 5-function tool map, the hot-mess checklist, the human-in-the-loop decision tree, and your 30/60/90 roadmap.

---

## Step 0: Turn your AI into your coach (do this first)

Upload this whole document into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Grok as a project knowledge file. Then paste this:

> "You are my AI operations coach. Walk me through this worksheet one step at a time, in order. Ask me one question at a time about my business, wait for my answer, and fill in each table with me. When we reach Step 3, score every task for me with your reasoning, then rank them. Keep it practical and specific to my business."

The worksheet is your guide. Your AI is your coach.

---

## Step 1: Your North Star (the one number)

Every business needs one number that tells it whether it's winning. For most of you, that's **monthly profit**, not revenue, not vanity numbers. Profit is what buys you your time back.

The question that sets it: **How much money would you need to make per month, indefinitely, to actually feel free?** Not rich. Free.

| | |
|---|---|
| My North Star metric | |
| Where it is today (per month) | |
| Where I want it in 12 months | |

**The filter for every AI tool you'll ever be sold:** *Will this move my North Star?* Yes → do it. No → don't.

---

## Step 2: Your admin leak, in dollars

> **Annual Admin Leak = People × Automatable Admin Hours/Week × Hourly Cost × 52**

Reference points from the talk: owners average **16.4 hrs/week on admin** (Time etc/Censuswide, 2023) · **57%** of US work hours are technically automatable (McKinsey, 2025) · **~$35/hr** median total cost of a private-sector worker (BLS, 2026).

| People doing admin | Automatable hrs/week each | Hourly cost | × 52 = **Annual leak** |
|---|---|---|---|
| | | $ | **$** |

---

## Step 3: Task inventory

List every recurring task that eats your week or your team's. Not the important ones: **the recurring ones.** Aim for 15 to 50. Include the embarrassing ones; they're usually the expensive ones. If you can't name the trigger and the output, it isn't a task yet.

| # | Task | Who does it now | Trigger (what starts it) | Output (what exists when done) | Hrs/week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | | | | | |
| 2 | | | | | |
| 3 | | | | | |
| 4 | | | | | |
| 5 | | | | | |
| 6 | | | | | |
| 7 | | | | | |
| 8 | | | | | |
| 9 | | | | | |
| 10 | | | | | |

**Prompt:** *"Here's my business in 3 sentences: [...]. List the 15 recurring admin and operations tasks businesses like mine usually lose the most hours to, with a likely trigger and output for each. Then ask me which ones apply."*

---

## Step 4: Find your biggest domino

Score each task on the five dimensions from the talk:

- **Impact** on your North Star (1 to 10)
- **Difficulty** to automate: Easy (< 1 day) = 1, Medium (< 1 week) = 5, Hard (> 1 week) = 10. Be honest, not heroic.
- **Frequency** per week (literal number; forty is forty; once a year = ignore it)
- **Urgency** (1 to 10): when does this need to be fixed by?
- **Domino size** (1 to 10): if this falls, how many other tasks get easier or disappear?

| Task | Impact | Difficulty | Freq/wk | Urgency | Domino | **Score** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |

**Score = (Impact × Frequency × Domino) ÷ Difficulty.** Then sort, in this order, exactly as in the talk: **highest urgency → biggest domino → highest impact → highest frequency → lowest difficulty.** Automate the top one first.

**Worked example (from the talk):** a consultant's lead qualification. Impact ~9 (30 to 40% of monthly profit), Difficulty 1 (under a day), Frequency 30+, Urgency 10, Domino 9. That's the domino. Automate it first and watch the rest of the line fall.

**Then the 80/20:** which 20% of tasks drive 80% of your North Star's growth? Automate or delegate those. Eliminate the rest, especially the stuff you "kind of like doing."

**My top 3 dominoes (bring these to your OpsJuice intro call):**

1. ____________________
2. ____________________
3. ____________________

---

## Step 5: The Hot Mess Checklist (10 questions before you automate ANYTHING)

AI doesn't fix bad. It multiplies whatever's there. Answer honestly:

1. ☐ Do people actually pay for what this process supports?
2. ☐ Have I run it by hand for 2 weeks and written down every step, in order?
3. ☐ Do I know exactly where it breaks or gets messy?
4. ☐ Have I **deleted** every step that doesn't need to exist (Eliminate before Automate)?
5. ☐ Can I name its trigger and its output in one sentence each?
6. ☐ Is the data going in clean and consistent, not scattered across five tools in five formats?
7. ☐ Will automating it move my North Star, or does it just feel good?
8. ☐ Have I compared the cost to a part-time human doing it? (Sometimes the human IS the right move.)
9. ☐ Do I know which steps need AI judgment, and which can be a simple fixed rule?
10. ☐ Have I decided where a human approves before anything reaches a customer?

**Fewer than 8 checked → fix it by hand first. Automate second.**

---

## Step 6: The five functions (your tool map)

Don't get attached to tools. Get attached to functions. You only need the function your #1 domino requires.

| Function | What it does | Examples | My pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🧠 **Brain** | Thinks and decides: reads, classifies, drafts | Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok | |
| 💪 **Muscle** | Executes: moves data, sends, updates records | n8n, Make.com, Zapier | |
| 🔨 **Workshop** | Builds new tools from plain English | Claude Code, Codex, Lovable, Replit, Cursor | |
| 📣 **Outreach** | Finds and reaches people at volume | Apollo.io | |
| 📊 **Dashboard** | Shows whether it's working | Baremetrics, ChartMogul, or custom-built | |

**Cost reality:** starter $0 to 30/mo · scaling $200 to 500/mo · running a real business $1,000 to 3,000/mo.

**Build vs. buy:** *Buy* when the task is common to your industry and a mature tool already does 80%. *Build* when the task is how you actually win, or the off-the-shelf version costs more per month than the problem does. *Neither* when you could have eliminated it.

---

## Step 7: standard operating procedure → workflow (the Agentic Layer)

For each of your top 3, fill in the recipe. 80% fixed rules, 20% AI: AI only where a rule genuinely can't do the job.

| Step | What happens | Fixed rule or AI? | Tool (function) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trigger | | Rule | Muscle |
| 1 | | | |
| 2 | | | |
| 3 | | | |
| Human approval? | | n/a | n/a |
| Output | | | |

---

## Step 8: Human-in-the-loop decision tree

For every workflow, ask in order:

1. **Is it a high-stakes decision?** (hiring, firing, lawsuits, refunds over $500) → **Human approves.**
2. **Could the customer be upset or in crisis?** → **Route to a human immediately.**
3. **Is it a sensitive topic?** (political, medical, wedding-related) → **Human approves.**
4. **Does it move money irreversibly?** (sending an invoice = fine; paying one = human approves)
5. **Is this one of its first 20 to 50 runs?** → **Human reviews every output.**
6. **Is data missing or ambiguous?** → **Hold queue: escalate, don't guess.**
7. **If it goes wrong, can I fix it within 24 hours without losing trust?** Yes → let it run. No → keep a human gating it.

---

## Step 9: The Knowledge System

One inbox per business (voice memos, notes, screenshots, call notes) → AI sorts it into: **knowledge base · action items · follow-ups · ideas to revisit** → query it any time.

Starter prompts:

- *"Sort everything below into knowledge base, action items, follow-ups, and ideas. Tag each by client and project."*
- *"What did I decide about [topic] last month?"*
- *"Based on everything captured this quarter, what's the bottleneck I'm not seeing?"*

---

## Step 10: Prompt starter pack (5 workflows that pay back first)

1. **Instant lead response:** *"You answer new inquiries for [business] in under 5 minutes. Read the message, identify the service needed and urgency, reply in this voice: [paste 2 past replies]. If details are missing, ask one question. Never quote a price; offer a booking link."*
2. **Follow-up:** *"Write a 3-touch follow-up (day 1, 3, 7) for leads who didn't reply. Friendly, short, one clear next step each."*
3. **Scheduling & reminders:** *"Write a reminder sequence (48h, 24h, 2h) that confirms, lets them reschedule in one tap, and includes these prep instructions: [...]."*
4. **Post-job review request:** *"Write a thank-you + review request sent 2 hours after a job, with this next-step offer: [...]."*
5. **Invoice follow-up:** *"Write polite reminders for unpaid invoices at 3, 10, and 21 days overdue. Firm by the third, never rude."*

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## Step 11: Your 30 / 60 / 90

| Window | What you do | My target date |
|---|---|---|
| **Days 1 to 30** | Domino #1 only. Human-approval queue on. Pilot on old or low-stakes data first. Measure it against your North Star. | |
| **Days 31 to 60** | Dominoes #2 and #3 (reminders, onboarding, document chasing). Add a dashboard. | |
| **Days 61 to 90** | Connect the workflows so they hand off to each other. Add the Knowledge System. A person fully stops doing the manual version. | |
| **Month 6** | The data flywheel: every automation feeds the next. Watch profit per employee climb. | |

**Check yourself for Mirage PMF every quarter:** Is margin growing with revenue? Is profit per employee climbing? Does every new customer need custom work? Can you point to one number AI moved?

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## Want it done for you?

**Book the free 20-minute OpsJuice intro call:** [opsjuice.com/ai-assessment](https://opsjuice.com/ai-assessment?utm_source=webinar&utm_medium=worksheet&utm_campaign=ai-automation-masterclass)

Want the full write-up after? The **$250 AI Assessment** delivers a plain-English report within 2 business days: your AI Opportunity Map, 30/60/90 roadmap, named tools with costs and savings, and a payback model from your real numbers. The $250 comes off your first build, and if it isn't worth it, you get a full refund.

More free tools: [The 5 AI Workflows to Automate First](https://opsjuice.com/burnout-to-freedom-guide) · [AI Readiness Scorecard](https://opsjuice.com/ai-readiness-scorecard) · [Missed-Call Calculator](https://opsjuice.com/missed-call-calculator)

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