Stop. Before you automate anything.

Everyone wants to automate the tedious stuff. Fair enough.

But here's what I see over and over again. People jump straight to automation tools without doing the groundwork that makes automation reliable.

That groundwork? Templates.

I know. Not exactly thrilling. But hear me out.

Your automation is only as good as what you feed it.

When you automate a process, you're automating the inputs and outputs. So if you haven't standardised what those look like, you're building on sand.

In this week's episode, I walk through a real example. A team I've been working with templatised their reporting process. The result:

All from standardising what could be standard and only requiring input where information was genuinely different each time.

Here's the bit most people miss.

Even if you're nowhere near ready to automate, the template alone delivers immediate time savings. And when you are ready to automate, you've already done the hard thinking. You know what works because you've been using it manually. That learning is gold.

One practical tip from the episode:

Use square brackets for your placeholder text. Things like [client name], [case reference]. Why? Because you can hit Ctrl+F and search for [ to jump straight to every field that needs filling in. Simple, but it genuinely changes how quickly you move through a document.

If you want the full walkthrough on what goes into a good template, how to get AI to build one for you, and where to start in your own business, have a listen to Episode 24.

Cheers, Mike

P.S. If this episode has you thinking about what AI could do in your business, I'm running a hands-on workshop on Friday 13 February at The Precinct in Fortitude Valley. You'll build your first AI agent from scratch. No coding needed, just bring your laptop. Spots are limited to 30, so grab yours before they're gone.

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