Learning Objectives
- Identify automation opportunities in your daily work
- Evaluate tasks using the automation decision framework
- Select your first Quick Win project
🎯 What You'll Learn: How to identify the ONE automation project that will become your first working skill
⏱️ Time Required: 35 minutes
📦 What You'll Build: A documented Quick Win with ROI calculation
Meet Riley: Your Guide Through This Course
Throughout this course, you'll follow Riley Harper, Operations Director at a mid-sized financial services firm. Riley has 15 years of business experience, leads a team of 12, and - like you - had no coding background when she started.
💬 "I was skeptical at first. 'AI coding' sounded like something for developers. But when I calculated that I was spending 4 hours every week on one report... I knew something had to change."
— Riley Harper
Riley's situation before the course:
By the end of Week 1, Riley will have:
Your journey mirrors Riley's. Let's find YOUR Quick Win.
What We're Building in This Lesson
A Quick Win is LOW complexity + HIGH impact. Not too hard to build, but valuable enough to get you excited.
In this lesson:
Exercise: Find Your Quick Win
⏱️ Total Time: 35 minutes
What You'll Build
📋 A documented automation project that scores 15+ on the Quick Win scale, complete with ROI calculation.
Before You Start
You'll need:
Two Ways Into This Lesson
Coming from Lesson 0.1?
You already have a candidate. Score it against the Quick Win framework below,
it's probably the right first project. Jump to Step 2.
Starting here directly?
Work through Step 1, we'll find your Quick Win together.
Step 1: Run the Discovery Process
⏱️ Time: 15 minutes
What you're doing:
You're going to have a conversation with Claude that surfaces the best automation opportunities from YOUR actual work.
Instructions:
I want to find my best task to automate. Ask me 4–5 questions about my typical work week — my role, industry, recurring tasks, reports I produce, and data I move between systems. Then give me my top 3 automation candidates ranked by impact and ease.
💡 Pro Tip: Think about what you do every Monday morning. Or every Friday afternoon. Those recurring moments are goldmines for automation.
Riley's Discovery:
💬 "When Claude asked about my typical week, I mentioned the margin report almost immediately. Every Monday, 4 hours, same process. That was my obvious candidate."
What to focus on:
💡 Coming later: Once you've built your first skill in Lesson 1.2, you'll know exactly how to turn this conversation into a reusable /automation-opportunity-finder command, something you can run any time you want fresh ideas.
✅ Success Check:
💡 Stuck? Can't think of anything?
**Add these to your conversation:**
- "What do you do every Monday morning?"
- "What's the last thing you do on Fridays?"
- "What report does your boss always ask for?"
- "What data do you pull from multiple systems?"
**Or ask:** "Suggest something typical for my role" and Claude will offer role-based patterns.
**Last resort:** Ask for "a universal use case" and you'll get the Weekly Status Report, works for everyone.
Step 2: Score Your Options
⏱️ Time: 10 minutes
What you're doing:
Evaluating your candidates against the Quick Win criteria to find the best first project.
The Quick Win Scoring Framework:
| Criterion | 3 Points (Ideal) | 2 Points | 1 Point (Risky) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🔧 Complexity | Single skill | 2-3 skills | Requires agents |
| 📅 Frequency | Weekly or more | Monthly | Quarterly/ad-hoc |
| ⏱️ Time Saved | 3+ hours/week | 1-3 hours/week | <1 hour/week |
| 🔄 Variability | Same every time | Minor variations | Highly variable |
| 🔗 Dependencies | Self-contained | 1-2 dependencies | Many dependencies |
| 👁️ Visibility | Personal use | Team use | Org-wide |
Target Score: 15+ out of 18
Riley's Scoring:
| Criterion | Riley's Margin Report | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Complexity | Single skill (same format weekly) | 3 |
| Frequency | Every Monday | 3 |
| Time Saved | 4 hours/week | 3 |
| Variability | Same structure, different numbers | 3 |
| Dependencies | Self-contained (she has all data) | 3 |
| Visibility | Her team only | 2 |
| TOTAL | 17/18 |
💬 "When I saw my score was 17, I knew this was the one. Perfect Quick Win territory."
Instructions:
✅ Success Check:
⚠️ Nothing scores above 15?
**Try these fixes:**
1. **Break it down** - Can you automate just ONE part of a complex task?
2. **Focus on the report** - The reporting/formatting part of any task is usually most automatable
3. **Go simpler** - What's the simplest recurring thing you do?
4. **Use a fallback** - The Weekly Status Report works for everyone. Score: guaranteed 16+
Step 3: Document Your Quick Win
⏱️ Time: 10 minutes
What you're doing:
Creating a clear record of what you'll automate and calculating your ROI.
Fill out this Quick Win Worksheet:
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ MY QUICK WIN ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ Project Name: ________________________________________ ║
║ ║
║ What I do now: ║
║ 1. ___________________________________________________ ║
║ 2. ___________________________________________________ ║
║ 3. ___________________________________________________ ║
║ 4. ___________________________________________________ ║
║ ║
║ Inputs needed: _______________________________________ ║
║ Output produced: _____________________________________ ║
║ ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ TIME & VALUE ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ Current time per task: _______ hours ║
║ Frequency: _______ times per week/month ║
║ Annual hours spent: _______ (time × frequency × 52 or 12) ║
║ ║
║ My effective hourly rate: £_______ (salary ÷ 2000) ║
║ Annual cost of this task: £_______ ║
║ ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ MY COMMITMENT ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ "My Week 1 project is automating ________________________, ║
║ which currently takes me _______ hours per week." ║
║ ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
Riley's Completed Worksheet:
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Project Name: Weekly Margin Report ║
║ ║
║ What I do now: ║
║ 1. Pull data from Prime Broker portal ║
║ 2. Copy into Excel template ║
║ 3. Calculate variance from last week ║
║ 4. Format and email to portfolio managers ║
║ ║
║ Current time: 4 hours | Frequency: Weekly ║
║ Annual hours: 200 hours ║
║ Effective rate: £75/hour ║
║ Annual cost: £15,000 ║
║ ║
║ "My Week 1 project is automating my weekly margin report, ║
║ which currently takes me 4 hours per week." ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
💬 "Seeing £15,000 in black and white... that's when it clicked. This isn't just about convenience. It's about reclaiming my time for strategic work."
🧮 How the number works: the task costs about £15,000 a year to do by hand (4 hours × 50 working weeks × a £75 effective hourly rate). Automating it down to 18 minutes hands back 3 hours 42 minutes a week, roughly 185 hours, or £13,875, a year. That £13,875 is the saving figure you'll see throughout the course. You'll build the full calculation yourself in Lesson 1.5.
✅ Success Check:
Overall Success Criteria
By the end of this lesson, you should have:
Quick Test: Can you complete this sentence?
"My Week 1 project is automating ____________, which takes me _______ hours per week and costs me £_______ per year."
If yes, you're ready for Lesson 1.2!
Troubleshooting
😰 "I can't think of anything to automate"
**Why this happens:** It's hard to see automation opportunities when you're deep in daily work.
**Fix:**
1. Walk through your calendar for the past 2 weeks
2. What meetings required prep work?
3. What deadlines required reports?
4. What do you do every Monday morning?
**Still stuck?** Say "suggest something for my role" to the skill, or use the universal Weekly Status Report.
🤔 "Everything I do is too complex"
**Why this happens:** You're looking at entire processes instead of discrete steps.
**Fix:**
1. Pick ONE complex task
2. Break it into 5-10 steps
3. Find the most repetitive step
4. That's your Quick Win
**Example:** "Client quarterly review" is complex. But "pulling the data for client quarterly review" is a Quick Win.
😕 "My work is too variable"
**Why this happens:** Focusing on the decisions rather than the preparation.
**Fix:** Separate judgment from gathering/formatting.
- You keep: The decisions, the analysis, the judgment calls
- You automate: The data gathering, the formatting, the structure
**Riley's insight:** *"My margin report has different numbers every week, but the FORMAT is identical. That's what I automated."*
🙄 "This seems too small to bother"
**Why this happens:** Underestimating cumulative impact.
**Fix:** Do the math!
- 30 min/week × 52 weeks = 26 hours/year
- At £50/hour = £1,300/year
- That's a nice vacation, recovered.
**The point of Week 1 isn't maximum impact - it's building confidence with a guaranteed win.**
You Did It!
You just identified your first automation project!
Why this matters:
You now have a clear target for Week 1. No more "what should I build?" uncertainty. You know exactly what you're creating and why it's worth your time.
What Riley learned:
💬 "The hardest part wasn't building the automation - it was choosing what to automate. Once I had that clarity, the rest was easy. Or at least, way easier than I expected."
Your numbers tell the story:
Every hour you invest in this course pays back many times over. Riley's 4-hour investment in Week 1 saves her 185 hours per year.
💡 The pattern: The best first automations are always weekly recurring reports with a fixed format. The numbers change, the structure doesn't. That's the sweet spot.