AI Workflow Automation Planner

What You Get

A prompt that maps your repetitive tasks, scores them for automation potential, and builds a phased plan — what to automate first, which tools to use, and step-by-step setup instructions.

You’re not going to automate everything. You shouldn’t. But you’re probably spending hours on tasks that are boring, repetitive, and absolutely doable by AI or a simple workflow connector. This prompt finds those tasks and builds you a realistic 30-day plan to get them working.

The Prompt

Copy this into Claude and fill in the bracketed info with your own data.

I need a realistic automation plan for my business. Here's what I'm working with:

**My weekly repetitive tasks:**
[List the tasks you do every week that feel repetitive. Examples: "I manually upload meeting notes to Notion," "I create 5 LinkedIn posts on Monday," "I send 10+ follow-up emails to leads," "I compile data from 3 different tools for my weekly report." Just describe what you do.]

**Tools I already use:**
[List the apps/platforms you use: email platform (Gmail, Outlook?), CRM (Pipedrive, HubSpot?), social scheduler, spreadsheets, Notion, Google Workspace, Airtable, Slack, etc.]

**Time spent on these tasks:**
[How many hours per week do these repetitive tasks take? Be honest.]

**My comfort level with tech:**
[Rate 1-10. 1 = "I barely use email," 10 = "I tinker with APIs in my spare time."]

**Budget for tools:**
[Free tools only? Under $50/month? Flexible? What's your range?]

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**Now build me an automation plan with these steps:**

1. **Categorize each task** as one of three types:
   - "Automate now" (takes less than 30 minutes to set up, saves 2+ hours/week, low complexity)
   - "Automate soon" (medium setup effort, good payoff, worth doing in month 2-3)
   - "Keep manual" (needs human judgment, creativity, or relationship — flag these as "AI-assisted" instead)

2. **For each "automate now" task, suggest specific tools:**
   - Claude for writing, analysis, brainstorming, or content generation
   - Zapier or Make for connecting different apps
   - Native platform automations (email rules, Notion automations, social scheduler features)
   - Stripe or Square integrations for payment workflows
   - Specify exactly what Claude would do, what Zapier would do, and what the human still needs to do

3. **Build a 30-day implementation plan with 4 weekly phases:**
   - Week 1: Set up foundations (connect accounts, test basic zaps, set up any API keys)
   - Week 2: First automation live (pick the one that annoys you most, get it running)
   - Week 3: Second automation live (add another quick win)
   - Week 4: Optimize and connect (if automations create new data, route it where it needs to go)

4. **For each automation, estimate:**
   - Time to set up (in minutes)
   - Time saved per week after it's running
   - Difficulty level (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
   - Tools needed and their costs

5. **Key instruction:** Be realistic about what AI can and can't automate. Anything that needs human judgment, relationship, or creativity — flag it as "AI-assisted" not "automated." The goal is to remove the boring parts, not replace the human parts.

6. **Include this rule:** If an automation saves you 30 minutes a week, that's 26 hours a year. Start small. Don't wait for the perfect system.

How to Use It

Three steps to go from overwhelmed to automated.

Step 1: Fill in the prompt above. Paste it into Claude (I use the latest Claude model), answer the five bracketed questions honestly. Takes 5 minutes.

Step 2: Read the plan, then pick ONE task to start with. Not the most important task. Not the most logical one. The one that makes you groan every time it shows up on your to-do list. That’s the one you’ll actually set up automation for because you’re motivated to never do it again.

Step 3: Block 30 minutes this week and set up that first automation. Follow the setup steps from Claude’s plan. Expect it to feel a little clunky the first time. That’s normal. By week 2, it’ll be routine.

Example Output

Here’s what a real automation plan looks like. (This is from a solopreneur who spends time on social posting, invoice follow-ups, meeting scheduling, content ideation, and monthly reporting.)

Task Categorization

Social media posting (weekly) — Automate Now

• Current time spent: 3 hours/week
• Setup time: 20 minutes
• Tools: Claude for captions/variations, Buffer or Hootsuite for scheduling
• How it works: You write the core post idea. Claude generates 3-5 variations. You pick the best one, schedule it in Buffer for the week.
• Time saved: 2.5 hours/week
• Human part: Creative direction, final approval, responding to comments

Invoice follow-ups — Automate Now

• Current time spent: 1.5 hours/week
• Setup time: 15 minutes
• Tools: Stripe + Zapier + Gmail template
• How it works: Stripe sends a webhook to Zapier when an invoice is unpaid for 7 days. Zapier sends a templated follow-up email from Gmail. You copy/paste a note if needed. No more manual digging.
• Time saved: 1 hour/week
• Human part: Personalizing the message if the client needs different payment terms

Meeting scheduling — Automate Soon

• Current time spent: 30 min/week
• Setup time: 45 minutes (Calendly sync is slightly fiddly)
• Tools: Calendly + Zapier + Google Calendar
• How it works: Calendly finds your open slots, client books, Zapier creates a Google Calendar event + sends them a prep email (generated by Claude template)
• Time saved: 20 min/week
• Difficulty: Intermediate

Content idea generation — AI-Assisted (not automated)

• Current time spent: 1 hour/week
• Tools: Claude conversation + Notion template
• How it works: You chat with Claude weekly about what’s been happening in your business. Claude suggests 10 post ideas. You pick 5 you actually care about. You write them (or feed them back to Claude for a first draft).
• Time saved: 30 min/week (thinking time, not writing time)
• Human part: All of it — this is where your voice lives

Week 1 Implementation Plan

• Monday: Connect Stripe to Zapier, test the webhook (5 minutes)
• Tuesday: Set up Buffer account, connect it to your social accounts (10 minutes)
• Wednesday: Create an invoice follow-up email template in Gmail (10 minutes)
• Thursday: Test a Zapier workflow with dummy data (15 minutes)
• Friday: Tell Claude “I’m launching my first two automations Monday. Here are my email templates and Buffer scheduling rules. Make sure they sound like me.” (5 minutes)

By end of Week 1: You’re ready to launch. Your foundations are set.

Tips

Four things that actually work.

1. Your first automation should take less than 30 minutes to set up. This builds confidence before you tackle something complex. The fastest wins feel like superpowers. Use them.

2. Don’t automate a broken process. If your invoice follow-ups don’t work manually, automating them won’t help. Fix the process first, then automate the fixed version.

3. Check what your existing tools already automate before adding new ones. Most people use 10% of the features they’re paying for. Zapier might be overkill if Gmail, Stripe, or Notion already do what you need natively.

4. If an automation saves you 30 minutes a week, that’s 26 hours a year. Start small. A lot of people wait for the perfect system and never launch. Imperfect automation running beats perfect automation someday.

Ready to Move?

Want help building yours? Book a Build Session — $350 for a 90-minute working session where we map your workflows, pick the right tools, and set up your first automation live. You’ll leave with one automation running and a clear roadmap for the next two.

Built with Claude. Every prompt in this playbook library has been tested in the latest Claude model.