Stop 2 of 9 · Set once
Routines that report
Four scheduled routines that replace the owner's morning, written exceptions only, with a hard list of what a routine may never do.
What a morning is for
Nadia's morning is a scan. Inbox, CRM, the calendar, the cash. Ninety minutes of looking for the three things that are wrong. Nothing in that scan needs an owner. Finding the three things is a routine, and deciding what to do about them is the job.
Four routines cover the week for a company this size. Each one reads, joins and writes a file. None of them touches a customer, a record or a number.
| When | What it writes |
|---|---|
| Weekdays 06:30 | The morning digest, exceptions only, each line with a name against it |
| Friday 15:30 | The cash exception list and Monday's collection calls |
| Monday 06:30 | The pipeline file, every stalled deal and the rep who owns it |
| First working day 06:00 | The month review and the exception log summary |
Exceptions only, or nobody reads it
The version of a digest that survives contact with a real Tuesday has a threshold in it. Not every open quote, only quotes older than five days with no reply. Not every order, only orders that missed a promised date. The threshold is what turns forty lines into six, and six lines is the difference between a routine you read and a routine you archive.
Every weekday at 06:30, read my Gmail since 17:00 the previous working day, the CRM deal list and today's calendar. Write one file called digest with four sections, exceptions only. Overdue promises: anything I or the team committed to in writing with a date now passed. Name the person who owes it. Stalled quotes: quotes sent more than five days ago with no customer reply. Name the rep. Broken orders: any order whose promised delivery date has moved or passed. Name Marco or the driver. Today: only the meetings where something is due from us that is not ready. Six lines per section maximum, sorted by how much money is attached. If a section has nothing, write the section name and none. Do not send any email, do not change the CRM, do not reply to anybody.
Every Friday at 15:30, read the QuickBooks aging export and the invoices raised this week from my Drive. Write a file called friday with three parts: invoices over 45 days where the customer has also ordered in the last 30 days, invoices over 45 days where they have not, and anything invoiced this week that is missing a PO number. For each line give the customer, the days outstanding and the last contact we recorded. Then list the three collection calls for Monday in the order I should make them, and say who is making each one. No advice, no drafted emails, no customer contact.
Every Monday at 06:30, read the CRM export and write a file called pipeline. List every open deal with no activity logged in 14 days, with the rep who owns it, the stage it is stuck in and the last thing that actually happened. Then list every deal that moved backwards a stage since last Monday. End with one line per rep: how many stalled deals they own. Change nothing in the CRM and contact nobody.
What a routine may never do
Write this list once and put it in every routine prompt. Send an external email or message. Change a record in the CRM or QuickBooks. Quote a price or commit a delivery date. Approve, order or spend anything. Make any decision about a person.
Everything else is fair game: read, join, count, rank, flag, draft into a file that a person opens.