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The 10-hour rule: when a task is ready for automation
The best automation ideas are usually not glamorous. They are the tasks your team quietly repeats every day because nobody has stopped to redesign the workflow.
01
The rule
If a task takes 10 hours or more per week across the team, happens every week, and follows a recognizable pattern, put it on the automation shortlist.
02
What to check before building
Volume alone is not enough. The task also needs usable inputs, clear decisions, and a way to measure whether the automation helped. If the source data is messy, the first project may be cleanup and workflow design.
- Where does the task start?
- What information is needed?
- What decisions are repeated?
- What should happen when confidence is low?
03
Good first candidates
Lead routing, support triage, document extraction, report drafting, proposal generation, quote prep, and internal knowledge search are common first candidates because the work repeats and the output can be reviewed.