Let The Bots Do It! 7 routine tasks you can easily automate today

There are several things you can automate in your business. Routine tasks can suck up much of your valuable time, so best to automate as many as possible.

The Top 7 To Automate

Here are my top seven routine tasks that you can easily automate starting today!

Passwords: It takes dozens of passwords to run your business and your life!  Multiple online services, banking, public utilities, online shopping, operating systems, phones, tablets, etc.

Each one should have a unique lengthy password for maximum security. And since we can't rely on our brains for all that, password managers are an essential tool that everyone should use.

I automate this simple task with KeePass. It's been around for years, it's free, secure and I like that it's a desktop app as I want to control my security locally. (I'm not a fan of "The Cloud"...)

If you prefer cloud-based apps, LastPass has also been around for years, and you can get a free version.

File Backups: Along with passwords, this is a top priority to automate!  You don't want to lose your hard work, important files and paid products.

As mentioned above, I like local, so I have a trusty PC on my home network that I use as my backup machine. I sync files daily to it via SyncToy. Simple app that's worked for years, but it may be reaching end of life.

I also use FreeFileSync (freeware) that can be set up with Task Scheduler in Windows to run at a predetermined time.

On the other hand, if you're using Windows/MS Office you can let OneDrive to the heavy lifting for you and backup files to your online space.

Amazon's AWS is one cloud service that I trust, mostly. I like it because it's not really a mass market service like DropBox, and it's very secure, as long as you know what you're doing.

S3 Browser is software that can sync from your computer to your S3 bucket. Amazon is extremely inexpensive so it makes for a very cost-effective solution.

At the very least you can use an external drive with built-in backup software. Western Digital and Seagate are two brands that come to mind. You can also use FreeFileSync to sync files to an external drive.

Social Media: Automate your posting with software like Hootsuite or SocialBee to post on a regular basis. Set up a bunch of posts at once and schedule them out to publish to different platforms at different times.

Blogging: Set up RSS-to-email on your email service provider like GetResponse or ActiveCampaign. That way your subscribers will be notified every time you publish a blog post on your site.

And if you use WordPress, JetPack can send your latest blog post to your social media accounts when you publish your blog.

Content Ideas: Feedly is great to set up content sources all in one place. There are different pricing tiers, but I find that the free tier does all I want and I've been using it for years.

Another easy tool is Google Alerts. Set up alerts on keywords or topics that you want to follow. You'll get email results sent to your inbox on the schedule you defined.

Customer Support: The simplest self-serve option is to write a FAQ and have it prominently located on your website.

If you feel the need to go beyond that, you can automate with chatbots or a helpdesk.

Having a helpdesk doesn't always mean having customer support reps. All-in-one marketing platforms like Kartra give you the option of building an online helpdesk with a knowledge base, and a way for customers to contact you and the ability to track customer requests all in one place.

Auto Responders: You can set up automatic responses in your personal email client, email marketing service, Facebook Business Page and Facebook Messenger, and likely other platforms as well. Even if you aren't "out of office" it's a good idea to have automatic emails letting people know when to expect a response from you.

That way you don't have to be constantly checking inboxes and reacting on the spot to what's coming in. You set an expectation for service and this allows you to deal with messages in batches, not as they come in.

It's Your Turn

Now that you’ve seen my list, I hope that it's given you some ideas on other things you can automate, or even a nudge on tackling the items above, if you haven't already!