The jobs, by type
- Marketing content. Social posts, product descriptions and adverts. Start with one idea turned into a week of content.
- Customer replies. Emails, messages and reviews, drafted for you to read before they go. See sorting your inbox and the support skills.
- Money admin. Quotes, invoices and chasing payment. AI prepares them, and you approve anything that asks for money.
- Research and reading. Looking into a supplier, reading a long document, making sense of your own numbers. Check its facts before you act on them.
- Leads and follow-up. A fast first reply to an enquiry, and a nudge on a quote that went quiet. For the nudge, see the follow-ups in the sales skills.
Which one is yours depends on your week, which is what the prompt works out.
The prompt: find the jobs AI should take off my week
Replace each bracketed line under ABOUT MY BUSINESS with your answer, then send. It interviews you one question at a time, so pick a quiet moment.
You are my operations adviser. I run a small business, my time is the scarcest thing in it, and my customers' trust took years to earn. Help me find the jobs I should hand to AI first: the ones that eat my hours and do little harm if a draft comes back wrong. I will act on your ranking, so use only what I tell you, never guess a figure, and tell me plainly when a job should stay with a person.
ABOUT MY BUSINESS (I fill this in once)
- What the business is: [e.g. "a two-person dog grooming salon", "I sell handmade candles online", "a plumbing firm with four vans", "freelance bookkeeping for local shops"]
- Country: [the country you operate in, so you can flag where a local rule needs checking and never guess one]
- Who does the work: [e.g. "just me", "me and a part-time assistant", "six staff, I do all the admin"]
- The tools I already use: [e.g. "Gmail, a paper diary, a spreadsheet for invoices", "Shopify, Instagram, QuickBooks"]
- The AI I have: [e.g. "free ChatGPT", "Claude Pro", "none yet"]
- What a normal week looks like: [a few honest lines, e.g. "mornings on jobs, evenings on quotes and chasing invoices, Sunday night on social posts I resent"]
- What I would never hand over: [e.g. "anything that talks to an upset customer", "pricing decisions", or "not sure"]
HOW TO WORK THROUGH IT
STEP 1: INTERVIEW ME, ONE QUESTION AT A TIME
Walk through these six areas in order. For each, ask what I do in that area in a normal week, how long it takes by my own estimate, and what goes wrong when it is done badly. Ask one question, wait for my answer, then ask the next. If I say an area does not apply to my business, move on.
1. Marketing content: social posts, product descriptions, adverts, a newsletter.
2. Customer replies: emails, messages, reviews, first answers to enquiries.
3. Money admin: quotes, invoices, chasing payment, getting the books ready for whoever does them.
4. Research and reading: looking into suppliers or competitors, reading long documents, making sense of my own numbers.
5. Leads and follow-up: replying quickly to new enquiries, following up quotes, keeping a list of who to contact.
6. Anything else that eats my week and is not on this list.
If I give a vague time ("ages"), ask me to put a number on it, even a rough one. Never put a number on it for me.
STEP 2: SCORE EACH JOB
Make a table with one row per job I named. Columns: the job, my hours a week (my figure only), and the risks that apply. Use these risk flags and no others:
- GOES TO A CUSTOMER: someone outside the business reads it.
- MOVES MONEY: it sends, requests or records a payment.
- TAX, LEGAL OR CONTRACT: a mistake could break a rule or an agreement.
- HOLDS PERSONAL DATA: it contains customers' names, addresses, health or payment details.
If I did not give hours for a job, write [NEED: hours a week] and leave it unranked until I answer.
STEP 3: RANK THEM AND SAY WHAT KIND OF HELP FITS
Sort the jobs into three groups, with one line of reasoning each:
- HAND OVER FIRST: high hours, and no MOVES MONEY or TAX, LEGAL OR CONTRACT flag. A job flagged GOES TO A CUSTOMER belongs here only where I will read every draft before it is sent.
- AI DRAFTS, I DECIDE: any job flagged MOVES MONEY. AI prepares it, and nothing is sent or paid until I approve it.
- AI PREPARES, A QUALIFIED PERSON DECIDES: any job flagged TAX, LEGAL OR CONTRACT. AI can organise papers and list questions, and my accountant, lawyer or adviser makes the call.
For every job flagged HOLDS PERSONAL DATA, tell me exactly what to remove or replace before I paste anything into a chatbot.
If I listed something under "would never hand over", keep it out of the first group whatever the hours say.
If two jobs tie, put the one with fewer risk flags first.
If a job carries more than one flag, put it in the strictest group that applies. HOLDS PERSONAL DATA never changes the group. It only changes what I remove before pasting.
STEP 4: WRITE MY FIRST INSTRUCTION
Take the top job in HAND OVER FIRST and write the message I would send to my AI to do it this week. Use my own details: my business, my customers, my tools. Put [NEED: ...] wherever I have not told you something the message depends on. Then tell me how I will know it worked: what a good result looks like, and how many minutes I should expect to spend checking it. If HAND OVER FIRST is empty, say so, and write the instruction for the top job in AI DRAFTS, I DECIDE, marked FOR MY APPROVAL.
STEP 5: TELL ME WHAT NOT TO AUTOMATE YET
Name the one job on my list I should keep doing by hand for now, and why. If that is none of them, say so.
RULES
- Every hour figure comes from me. Never estimate, average or invent a time saving, a price, a law or a policy. Write "not stated" where you do not know.
- Every draft that reaches a customer is marked FOR MY APPROVAL. You never assume it is sent.
- Do not recommend a paid tool or a plan. If a job needs something my current AI cannot do, say what is missing and stop there.
- Do not flatter the plan. If AI will save me little, say so.
CHECK YOUR WORK BEFORE YOU FINISH
1. Every hour figure in the table is one I gave you.
2. Every job with a risk flag sits in the right group.
3. Every customer-facing draft is marked for my approval.
4. Name the one thing in this plan you are least sure of, and what I should check before I rely on it.
A made-up example: what comes back for a two-person dog grooming salon
Hand over first: replies to enquiries, 4 hours a week. They go to a customer and hold personal data, so names come out before pasting and the owner reads every draft.
AI drafts, I decide: payment reminders, 2 hours a week, flagged because they move money.
AI prepares, a qualified person decides: the quarterly tax papers. AI sorts the receipts, and the accountant makes the call.
Keep by hand for now: replies to complaints.
Every figure here is made up to show the shape of the answer.
One rule to borrow
Anthropic built a set of small business workflows for Claude, and its own page (read 28 September 2026) says every one starts in approval mode: "Claude drafts and stages the work, and nothing sends, posts, or pays until you say so." Start any AI you use the same way.
The honest bit
- The evidence is thin. In a survey of 145 small business owners published on 18 August 2026, 89.7% said AI saves them at least some time each week, and 10.3% said it saves them none. It is one small survey, run by a company that stages business events.
- It did not measure hours per job. The survey counts time saved overall, so the only honest figure for your invoices or your posts is your own, which is why the prompt asks for it.
- A wrong reply costs more than a slow one. AI can state something false in a confident voice, so read every draft that reaches a customer.
Try it this week
Run the prompt tonight, take the first instruction it writes, and use it once tomorrow. Time how long the checking takes you, since that number tells you whether the job is worth handing over.
A few quick questions
Do I need a paid AI plan for this?
No. The prompt is plain text, so it runs in free ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. A paid plan matters later, if the job you pick needs long documents or a connection to your email or files.
What should I take out before I paste customer details?
Take out names, addresses, phone numbers, payment details and anything about someone's health, and swap in a placeholder such as Customer A. The prompt tells you what to remove for each job before you paste.