What's the one task you'd love to never do again?

Nothing launched today that changes your business. So instead of filling your inbox with noise, here's the one thing worth your time this morning: a 10-minute exercise that most small business owners keep meaning to do and never get round to.

What's the one task you'd love to never do again?

Open a blank page and write down the three tasks you or your staff repeat every single week that feel like a waste of a human brain. Be specific — not "admin," the actual task.

If you run a salon, it might be replying to the same five booking questions on Instagram. If you're a tradesperson, it might be writing up quotes from site notes every Friday evening. If you manage a restaurant, it might be chasing suppliers when deliveries come up short. If you run an agency, it might be reformatting client data from one spreadsheet layout into another.

Once you've got your three, pick the most annoying one and paste a real example into ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot with the instruction: "Do this for me." The free tier works fine for this. You'll know in two minutes whether it's any good.

Most people who actually try this find at least one task that AI handles well enough today — they just never tested it because they were waiting for someone to tell them which tool to use. Nobody's coming. Ten minutes. One task. That's the whole homework.

Quick hits

If you import or export goods: HMRC updated four sets of Customs Declaration Service guidance yesterday, including procedure codes and known error workarounds. If you handle your own declarations rather than using a broker, ask your CDS software provider whether the April updates affect any of your commodity codes. A rejected shipment costs more than a five-minute check. If you use a broker, they should already be across it — but no harm sending a quick email to confirm.

The bottom line

Some days the most useful AI advice is: stop reading about it and spend ten minutes trying it. Today's that day.

That's today's briefing. Subscribe free to get this in your inbox every morning.