Newest first. The automation pieces are grouped by function, from finance and delivery through to security and a cluster on consumer brands selling into retail. Each one names what it costs, how it breaks, and how you would know it worked.
Getting hired
I Did Not Write the Answer. I Built It.
A take-home hiring test, a working tool built instead of a memo, a working session instead of a presentation, and a hire on the spot. The method, and when not to use it.
Delivery automation
What 133 Jira Automation Rules for an Agency Actually Contain
Seven families of rule, the ScriptRunner and Apps Script layers around them, and why 70 live out of 133 is the number that matters.
Operations
Auditing Sixty-Three Servers With a Keep, Migrate, or Kill Column
Hosting fleets grow one justified server at a time. What to measure, for how long, and why the decision column comes first.
Client operations
When the Client Goes Quiet: Running a Month by the Ticket
The four-tab workbook that held a month of client work together when the point person was out, and the join key that made it one record.
AI in practice
How I Actually Use Claude Chat in Executive Assistant Work
Several hours a day of real use: the four things it genuinely helps with, the three-part prompt, and the four places I stop.
AI in practice
Building Software Without Being a Developer, and the Discipline It Needs
The barrier that dropped was typing. Specification, verification and maintenance did not change.
AI in practice
Making Diagrams When You Do Not Have a Designer
Every diagram on this site was made this way. The order that decides the outcome, and the one category where you should hire a professional.
AI in practice
Delegating Multi-Step Work to AI, and Why the Brief Matters More
A vague instruction in a conversation costs one message. In a delegated task it runs for an hour and produces confident output.
Executive support
Travel Itineraries That Assemble Themselves and Work Offline
Merge confirmations into one timeline, parse deterministically rather than with a model, and reconcile the count before departure.
Executive support
E-Signature Workflows: The Signature Is a Trigger, Not an Ending
Contracts stall on routing, not reluctance. Set signing order, escalate reminders, and fire the four things that follow execution.
People operations
Recruiting Pipeline Automation That Stops Short of Judging People
Automate acknowledgement, scheduling, feedback collection and stage timers. Scoring stays human, and here is why.
People operations
Leave Requests That Check Coverage, Not Just Balances
Whether someone has days left is a lookup. Whether the business functions while they are away is the question.
People operations
Performance Reviews Written From a Record, Not From Memory
Annual reviews written from memory cover six weeks. Prompt monthly for two lines and assemble the draft automatically.
Marketing operations
Content Repurposing: The Bottleneck Was Never Scheduling
The queue empties because there was not enough to say. Derive from substantial work and keep a queue rather than a calendar.
Marketing operations
Review Requests That Fire on a Signal, Not a Schedule
Goodwill has a half-life. Trigger from a milestone, ask the internal question first, and route unhappy answers to a person.
Delivery automation
Replacing the Daily Status Meeting With a Generated Summary
Status is information and belongs in writing. Send a personal view, and actually shorten the meeting.
Data and reporting
One System Owns Each Field: Sync Without Corrupting Your Data
Two-way sync does not resolve conflicts, it picks silently. Assign field ownership and sync one direction only.
Executive support
Inbox Triage: Sorting Before a Human Opens Anything
Route with rules, use a model to summarise and draft, and never automate archiving or replying.
Marketing operations
Content Scheduling and Reuse, Honestly Assessed
What scheduling and repurposing genuinely solve, what they do not, and why the reuse index matters more than the scheduler.
CPG operations
Line Review Scaffolding: Never Missing a Category Review Window
Retailers set the calendar and will not wait. Generate a per-retailer submission plan dated backwards from the deadline.
CPG operations
Retailer Compliance Pre-Checks: Catching Chargebacks Before Dispatch
Almost every compliance chargeback is for something knowable before the truck left. Let your deduction data choose which rules to automate.
CPG operations
Velocity Dashboards: Knowing Your Rate of Sale Before the Buyer Tells You
Units per store per week is what the buyer looks at. Joining point-of-sale, depletion and shipment data, and why item mapping is the whole project.
CPG operations
Promotion Post-Mortems: Measuring the Deal After It Ends
Nielsen found 59 percent of trade promotions did not break even. Record the plan, set a clean baseline, and measure the dip afterwards.
Security operations
Quarterly Access Reviews That People Actually Complete
Access only accumulates because nothing prompts removal. Review by exception, and default silence toward less access.
Security operations
You Do Not Have a Backup Until You Have Restored From It
A backup job reporting success tells you the job ran, not that your data is there. Automate a monthly restore test.
Security operations
Document Retention: Deleting on a Schedule Rather Than on Instinct
Having no policy is a policy. Write a schedule, archive before deleting, and build legal holds first.
Delivery automation
Client Onboarding: The Quiet Week That Sets the Tone
The gap between signing and starting is when a client develops doubt. Trigger from the signature and ask for everything once.
Delivery automation
Handoffs That Transfer the State, Not the File Location
Rejected approaches are the most valuable and least transferred context. Generate the retrievable half and prompt for two things in prose.
Finance automation
Expense Capture at the Till, Not at Month End
An expense carries its context for about a day. Let a model extract while rules categorise, and catch what nobody submitted.
Finance automation
Invoicing That Generates Itself the Day Work Is Delivered
Monthly batch invoicing adds weeks to your payment cycle before the terms even start. Trigger drafts from delivered work, and never auto-send.
Finance automation
Payment Reconciliation and the Exception Queue
Why exact-amount matching fails, how to tier by confidence, and why a false match is worse than no match at all.
Finance automation
Subscription Tracking and the Renewal Calendar That Gives You Notice
Build the inventory from card statements, and record the notice period rather than just the renewal date.
Sales operations
Lead Routing: Closing the Gap Between Arriving and Being Someone's Job
Most lost enquiries are lost to a weekend. Route, acknowledge, enrich and escalate automatically.
Sales operations
CRM Hygiene: Automating Against Data That Decays on Its Own
Flag duplicates, bounces and decay automatically, and never let the system merge records by itself.
Sales operations
Proposal and Document Generation Without Last Client's Name In It
Split fixed from variable, generate the boilerplate completely, and keep the thinking human.
People operations
Onboarding Automation: Accounts, Equipment and a First Week That Was Planned
Role-based access profiles, triggered from a start date, with the deprovisioning checklist written at the same time.
Data and reporting
Reports That Build Themselves, and the Line You Should Not Cross
Automate the gathering, keep interpretation human, and show a freshness timestamp most dashboards are missing.
Data and reporting
Alerting That People Still Read in Month Three
The one test before creating any alert, why escalation beats repetition, and how to prune before the channel gets muted.
Executive support
Meeting Preparation Packs That Assemble Themselves
One page from the calendar and decision log, delivered the evening before, leading with the decision the meeting must reach.
Delivery automation
One-Click Project Scaffolding: Generating a Whole Engagement From a Form
Replace copying last project forward with a generator that creates an epic and 28 child tickets with phases, owners and calculated dates.
Delivery automation
QA Checklists That Reset When Work Reopens
Rework is where defects escape, and it is exactly when the checklist is least useful. How to build attach-on-create and reset-on-reopen.
Finance and delivery
Weekly Utilization and Burn Reporting That Builds Itself
An overrun caught at forty percent through a project is a conversation. At ninety percent it is a write-off.
Finance automation
Automated Receivables Chasing That Stops When the Invoice Is Paid
55 percent of US B2B invoiced sales are overdue. The reminder ladder that starts before the due date, and the check that keeps it safe.
Operations automation
One Route In: Wiring Request Intake Straight to Tracked Work
When requests arrive across six channels, nobody can stop checking. One intake route, four fields, and an owner attached automatically.
Security operations
Automating Offboarding: Revoking Access on the Last Day, Every Time
Stolen credentials are the most common way into a breach. Building an access map and automating revocation on the leaving date.
AI automation
Meeting Notes to Action Items, With a Human Gate
Extraction from transcripts is genuinely good. Deciding what was agreed is not. Where models belong versus rules.
Automation strategy
When to Delete the Tool and Write Forty Lines Instead
Connector platforms bill per task, so your most valuable automation is your most expensive one. When to migrate, and when to keep paying.
Operations automation
Generating Recurring Work Before It Is Due
Native recurring tasks appear on the due date, too late to plan around. A rolling two-week horizon and the check that stops duplicates.
CPG operations
CPG Deduction Triage: Automating the Clock Before It Runs Out
Retailer deductions become permanent losses when dispute windows close unnoticed. Ingestion, deadline tracking and evidence assembly.
The role
Will AI Replace the Executive Assistant? What the Data Actually Says
US employment projections say little or no change through 2034. What is actually being substituted, what is becoming more valuable, and the test for any given task.
The roles
Executive Assistant vs Chief of Staff vs Operations Manager
Three titles that overlap heavily and cost very differently. What each is accountable for, which one a business needs, and the career route nobody writes about.
Automation
How I Automate Executive Assistant Work with Google Apps Script
The recurring work most assistants do by hand can be scripted inside Google Workspace at no cost. What to build first, and the five rules I follow.