The library
40 jobs nobody wants to do.
Every one is the same thing underneath — a Hand with a brief. Some wait to be asked. The rest have a running order and a schedule, and several Hands passing work between them.
Nothing here sends, spends or submits without your approval. You set where that line sits, and you can move it.
Money
The jobs where not doing them costs you money quietly.
Refunds
Gets the money back.
When you ask
Finds the charge that was wrong, works out who to ask and how, writes it, and keeps asking until somebody answers.
“These three charges are wrong. Get them refunded.”
Wants your mail, and a browser.
The subscription audit
Finds what you are still paying for.
When you ask
Reads the statements and the receipts, lists every recurring charge, and marks the ones nothing has touched in a year.
“What am I paying for every month that I have not opened since January?”
Wants statements or a bank export.
Chasing invoices
Knows who owes you, and asks.
Runs every Friday
Ages the invoices, drafts a chaser in your voice with the tone matched to the history, and closes it out when they pay.
- age the ledger
- draft each chaser
- you approve
- send and log
“Work out who has not paid us and go after them.”
Wants your mail.
Expenses
Turns the pile of receipts into the claim.
Runs month end
Reads the receipts, categorises them, flags the one that is missing, and totals it.
- read the receipts
- categorise
- flag what is missing
- total it
“Do September's expenses from the receipts in this folder.”
Renewals
Never lets one auto-renew at the bad price.
Runs daily, quietly
Keeps every renewal date, warns you before the notice period closes, and pulls what the alternatives cost.
- hold every date
- warn before the notice period
- pull the alternatives
- tell you
“What renews in the next sixty days, and what should we re-quote?”
Your inbox
The reason you have four hundred unread and a bad feeling.
Triage
Reads all of it so you read less.
Runs every morning
Sorts what came in by what it actually wants from you, answers what does not need you, and hands you the short list that does.
- read everything in
- answer what does not need you
- summarise the rest
- hand you the short list
“Go through this morning and tell me only what actually needs me.”
Wants your mail.
The unsubscriber
Gets you off the lists.
When you ask
Finds every list you are on, opens the unsubscribe page in a real browser, and does it — one by one, and shows you the ones that would not go quietly.
“Unsubscribe me from everything I have not opened in six months.”
Wants your mail, and a browser.
The chaser
The emails you sent that nobody answered.
Runs every Monday
Finds what went quiet, works out which ones mattered, and drafts the nudge.
- find what went quiet
- judge what mattered
- draft the nudge
- you approve
“Who have I emailed in the last month who never replied?”
Wants your mail.
The digest
What happened while you were out.
Runs when you come back
One page when you come back: what moved, what is stuck, what is waiting on you. Shortest first.
- read what happened
- sort by what moved
- write one page
“I have been away since Thursday. What did I miss?”
Your calendar
The back and forth that is not the meeting.
Meeting coordinator
Does the back and forth.
When you ask
Finds the time that works for everyone, sends the invite, moves it when someone cannot, and tells the others.
“Get the four of us in a room next week, an hour, not Monday.”
Wants your calendar and mail.
Appointment setter
Books the thing you keep not booking.
When you ask
Rings the list, or works the booking sites, until it is in the diary — and tells you what it could not get.
“Book the dentist, the car service and the eye test. Any time except Friday.”
Wants a browser.
The reminder
Everything with a date on it.
Runs daily, quietly
Holds the dates nobody owns — filings, certificates, insurance, birthdays — and says something before, not after.
- hold the dates nobody owns
- check them daily
- say something before
“What is due before the end of the month that nobody has started?”
Travel
Books it, and puts it where you will find it.
When you ask
Compares the options against what you actually care about, books it once you say so, and files the confirmations.
“I need to be in Manchester Tuesday morning and back that night.”
Wants a browser.
Paperwork
The jobs that are only hard because they are boring.
The form filler
Fills in the thing you keep putting off.
When you ask
Works the portal, uses what it already knows about you, and stops at anything it would be guessing at.
“Fill this in from what you already have, and tell me the bits you cannot answer.”
Wants a browser.
The document chaser
Chases people for what they have not sent.
Runs every few days
Keeps the list of what is outstanding, asks again on a sensible interval, and stops asking the moment it arrives.
- keep the outstanding list
- ask again on an interval
- stop the moment it arrives
“Which subcontractors still have not sent their insurance certificates?”
Wants your mail.
Onboarding
Sets a new client or hire up properly.
Runs when a new one starts
Runs the same checklist every time so the fifth one is as good as the first, and says which step is stuck.
- make the company
- pull what we did last time
- run the checklist
- report what is stuck
“Start Renwick off the way we did Northline.”
Outward
Anything with your name on it. None of it sends without you.
Publicity
Gets you written about.
Runs weekly
Finds the journalists and newsletters that cover what you do, works out the angle that is actually news, and drafts the approach one at a time rather than as a blast.
- find who covers this
- work out the angle
- draft one approach each
- you approve, then send
“Who covers this, and what would make them care?”
Wants a browser and your mail.
Reviews
Answers them. All of them.
Runs daily
Watches where you get reviewed, drafts a reply in your voice, and flags the one that needs you personally.
- watch where you are reviewed
- draft a reply in your voice
- flag the bad one
- you approve
“Draft a reply to everything from the last fortnight. Show me the two-star one first.”
Wants a browser.
Social
Writes it, posts it, watches what comes back.
Runs to a calendar
Keeps the calendar, writes in the voice it learned from what you have already published, and brings back what people said.
- keep the calendar
- write in your voice
- you approve
- post, then watch
“Three posts about the thing we shipped, spread over the week.”
Wants connected accounts.
Complaints
Writes it properly, and escalates it.
When you ask
Gets the facts and the dates straight, writes the letter that gets a result rather than the one that feels good, and knows the next rung up.
“They have had it for six weeks. Write the complaint and tell me who it goes to.”
SEO
Finds what you could rank for, and fixes what stops you.
Runs weekly
Reads what people actually search for in your line of work, checks what you already rank for, and turns the gap into a short list of pages worth writing and technical things worth fixing.
- pull the search data
- find the winnable gaps
- check what is technically broken
- rank the list by effort
“What could we realistically rank for that we are not even on the page for?”
Wants Search Console, or just a browser.
Your data
Every system you own is full of things that are stale, missing or entered twice.
The data cruncher
A big messy file, and an answer out of it.
When you ask
Takes the export nobody can open, cleans it, works out what you asked, and shows the steps — so the number can be checked rather than believed.
“Forty thousand rows. Tell me which customers we lost and roughly when.”
The enricher
Fills in the columns that are empty.
When you ask
Takes a thin list and goes and finds the missing fields, one row at a time, marking which it could not confirm rather than guessing at them.
“Half this list has no company size and no website. Go and find them.”
Wants a browser.
The CRM updater
Keeps the record true to what actually happened.
Runs every evening
Reads the week's mail, calls and meetings, and updates the record from what took place — rather than from what someone remembered to type in on Friday.
- read what happened
- match it to the right record
- update it
- list what it could not place
“Update everything from this week's email before I look at the pipeline.”
Wants your mail and calendar.
The deduper
Finds the same thing recorded four times.
When you ask
Goes through the list for near-matches rather than exact ones, groups what is probably one thing, and shows you the merge before it does anything.
“I think we have the same twelve companies in here under different names.”
The reconciler
Two systems disagree. Works out which is right.
Runs month end
Compares the two, lists every difference, and says which side it believes and why — instead of overwriting one with the other and hoping.
- pull both
- line them up
- list every difference
- say which it believes, and why
“The sheet and the system do not agree on last month. Find every difference.”
The migrator
Moves it without losing any of it.
When you ask
Takes the old system's export, maps it onto the new one's fields, and counts both ends. If the counts do not match it stops and tells you, rather than finishing.
“Move all of this into the new system and prove nothing fell out.”
Wants an export from the old one.
The list builder
Builds the list from nothing.
When you ask
Starts from the description of who you want rather than a source, finds them, and puts them in a sheet with where each one came from.
“Every managing agent within twenty miles who runs more than fifty units.”
Wants a browser.
The classifier
Sorts the backlog nobody sorted.
When you ask
Takes the pile with no categories on it, proposes a set that fits what is actually there, and applies it once you agree — not before.
“Two years of expenses, none of them categorised. Suggest the categories first.”
Knowing things
Reading you would rather not do.
The reader
Reads the hundred pages.
When you ask
Goes through the report, the lease, the offering memo, and comes back with what is in it and where — page numbers, not impressions.
“Read this and tell me what I should be worried about.”
The fact checker
Checks the specific thing.
When you ask
Takes a claim, finds its source, and says whether the source supports it — quoting the part that does or does not, and naming the date.
“Check every number in this before it goes out.”
Desk research
A question in, a sourced answer out.
When you ask
Does the looking, keeps the links, and tells you which part it could not confirm rather than smoothing over it.
“Who else does this, what do they charge, and how do you know?”
Wants a browser.
Meeting notes
Turns the recording into notes and actions.
When you ask
Writes what was decided, who owes what, and by when — then puts the actions where they will be seen.
“Notes from this, and the actions on the board.”
Watching
Jobs that are only useful if nobody has to remember to do them.
The night watch
Watches, and wakes you if it moves.
Runs continuously
Sits on a page, a feed, a folder or an inbox and does nothing at all until the thing you care about changes.
- watch
- notice the change
- judge whether it matters
- wake you
“Tell me the moment that filing appears.”
Wants a browser.
Competitor watch
Tells you when they change something.
Runs weekly
Reads what they publish, notices what changed, and says whether it matters instead of sending you a diff.
- read what they published
- diff it against last week
- decide if it matters
- write it up
“What have they changed on their pricing page since March?”
Wants a browser.
Things that run themselves
Several Hands, a running order and a schedule. Nobody has to remember.
The newsletter
Writes it, checks it, sends it.
Runs weekly
Gathers what happened, drafts the issue in your voice, has another Hand check every claim in it, and holds it for you before it goes.
- gather what happened
- draft the issue
- a second Hand checks it
- you read it
- send
“Put this week's issue together. I will read it Thursday.”
Wants your mail or a sending account.
The weekly report
The numbers, and what they mean.
Runs every Friday
Pulls the same figures every week, says what moved and what it thinks caused it, and writes it the same way each time so it is comparable.
- pull the figures
- compare to last week
- explain what moved
- write it up
“Same report as last Friday, with this week's numbers.”
Month end
Closes the month without you.
Runs month end
Reconciles what came in against what was invoiced, chases what is missing, and hands you a short list of what only you can decide.
- reconcile
- chase the gaps
- flag the exceptions
- hand you the list
“Close September. Tell me what is unresolved.”
The lead packet
Every new enquiry, researched before you call.
Runs when one arrives
When something comes in, one Hand finds out who they are, another writes the brief, and it is on your desk before the call.
- notice the enquiry
- research them
- write the brief
- put it on the desk
“Anyone new who writes in, have a packet ready before I ring them.”
Wants your mail.
The content pipeline
Idea to published, with a check in the middle.
Runs to a calendar
Holds the list of ideas, researches the one that is next, drafts it, has it checked, and waits for you before anything goes out.
- take the next idea
- research it
- draft
- a second Hand checks
- you approve
“Take the next thing off the list and get it to a draft I can read.”
None of these is quite it?
Then write the brief yourself. These are not products — they are the same Hand, told what the job is. A paragraph in your own words does the same thing as anything on this page.
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