There is this feeling that the week is slipping away in small tasks. Twelve tabs open, Slack buzzing, and email pinging away. You say, “I’ll just do this one thing” and then an hour disappears. If you lead a startup, you know the rhythm: big highs, long nights, and too many of those hours consumed by … the small stuff.
What if you really could find back 10 hours (or more) a week? Yes, really true. Not wishful thinking. And certainly not a magic bullet. But rather a system. Because, you know, if you can automate the boring stuff or save time in some way, you will free your brain up for the interesting stuff: strategy, growth, impact.
Spot the time-sucks (with brutal honesty)
The first step is to enumerate the time-sucks in your life. Precisely the activities you dread every Monday morning. The ones you’ve learned you will forget – if you’re tired, or perform poorly while performing the task. Examples might include:
- Transferring individual data between applications (CRM → Sheets → Inbox)
- You send every new lead the same old “thank you for your interest” email
- Creating the weekly investor or board report
- Sharing posts to more than one social media channel
- Sorting and prioritising support tickets
One founder in a blog said they were getting ~40 non-urgent email notifications a day. That’s an interruption every 12 minutes, and the “switch cost” adds up.
On Reddit, one person wrote:
“The thing is… I’m too busy (and lazy) to spend time trying to write down the exact workflows and then look for ways to automate them…”
So yes, you have to slow down for a moment to speed up later. And it feels weird at first, because you’re giving yourself permission to stop doing the urgent but pointless.
Choose your automation bets wisely
You won’t be able to automate everything at once. You should try to select tasks that:
- Are repeatable (e.g. daily, weekly)
- Take considerable time (e.g. tasks you see yourself doing regularly)
- Have sufficient definition (e.g. you see the workflow)
- Have low variance (e.g the workflow is always similar; if it’s constantly changing, it’s harder to automate).
For example, you have an investor/update/board update, wherever you have to copy and paste numbers, format slides, and send an email. That is repeatable work that is begging for automation. Or consider a CRM entry that you have to enter the same field over and over: you will feel thankful once that is automated. One cautionary voice, though: someone once published a post called “Don’t automate all the boring stuff”, and their point was a reduction of flexibility due to automation.
Choose your tools (without over-complicating)
You don’t need to build a rocket. There are plenty of friendly tools and tactics for startups. Some options:
- No-code / low-code automation platforms (e.g., Zapier, Make, n8n)
- Simple scripting (if you have a dev resource) in Python, or even macro-style automation for spreadsheets
- Workflow automation inside your stack (CRM → webhook → Slack notification → Sheet update)
On Reddit, someone offering free automation said:
“I’m working … using tools like Zapier, n8n, Make.com … If you’re building a startup, managing clients, or wasting time on repetitive tasks – I’d love to help.”
So the ecosystem is there. The trick is choosing which tasks and which tools to match your team’s skill set.
Build a small “win” fast (and let it motivate you)
Here’s where you get momentum. Pick one task, build the automation, and ship it next week (or sooner). It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to free up 30-60 minutes, show value, and give you confidence to tackle bigger stuff.
For example: automatically take new leads from your form, add them to your Sheet + CRM + Slack channel, and send a welcome email, all without manually doing it. Then you’ll actually feel the difference. You’ll see your inbox lighten up. You’ll see fewer “oh, damn, I forgot to do that” moments.
Expand, monitor, and refine
Once you’ve done one, rinse & repeat. But keep an eye on:
- Edge cases: automation must handle the weird ones. If it fails too often, you’ll revert to manual work. A Reddit post warned:
“Trust. Devs assume automation = spaghetti. They’ve been burned by no-code promises that collapse under real-world edge cases.” - Visibility & ownership: Who owns this automation? What’s the fallback when it breaks? Always log errors.
- Time savings: Track how many hours you actually reclaimed. Celebrate that. It matters.
- Human judgment involvement: Some tasks still need your creative brain. Don’t automate everything blindly.
Culture & mindset: taking back your headspace
Automation is not just about saving hours. Automation is about STOPPING the “busy-work treadmill” and allowing your team to breathe, think, and create. By eliminating those micro-interruptions, you are allowing for “headspace”.
A startup blog that I read quoted that after automating email filtering, social media scheduling, data entry, and other repetitive tasks, they saved about 20.5 hours per week (yes, that many).
Imagine. Getting two complete work days back each week. What would you do? Collaborate with customers? Brainstorm the next product feature? Sleep a bit more? All important.
Steer clear of these typical stumbles
- Shopping for tools before you have the workflow mapped. Why waste time tinkering with settings on the tools instead of the time to automate- use tools that automate the mindless work instead.
- Automating the wrong things (rare, one-off tasks). Shifting rare tasks to automation usually brings too small a return on investment (ROI).
- Forgetting about maintenance. Automations break when an app changes, so plan for that.
- Expecting the magic to just happen overnight. It takes some setup and some tweaking. But the payoff is real.
- Throwing out the human’s input or touch at all. Automation serves humans; it does not and should not replace human thinking, reasoning, or experience.
For high-growth startups: start thinking about scale
Once you’ve freed up time, ask yourself how automation can enable growth, not just efficiency.
- Can you automate lead scoring or segmentation so your sales team spends less time chasing the wrong leads?
- Can you build self-service onboarding flows that scale without extra headcount?
- Can you automate your data pipelines so decision-makers always see live insights, instead of waiting for “when John collates the numbers”?
One founder on LinkedIn noted that the most successful SaaS products weren’t built by chasing flashy ideas; they solved tedious, painful workflows. That’s the real leverage.
So your automation isn’t just about convenience. It can become your product advantage.
Final word: Embrace the freedom
Hey, I know you’re putting in the hours. It’s likely that you feel there is not enough time. But when you give yourself permission for automation to take care of the busy work you don’t really want to do, you can lift that weight off your shoulders. You gain back a piece of your week. You create more space. And in that space, magic happens. Ideas percolate. Relationships flourish. You lead instead of always putting out fires.
Start small. Then build the habit. Automation is not a set-it-and-forget-it tool; it is a mindset. Your future self, two weeks from now, calm, with a less cluttered inbox, will thank you for it.
