How to automate everyday tasks

Start with the features already on your phone and computer: email rules and filters, recurring calendar events, text shortcuts, templates and scheduled sends. Add an AI assistant for tasks that need a little judgement, such as drafting replies or summarising. Set each one up once, check it for a week, then let it run.

Small tasks add up

Business automation often means connecting systems. Everyday automation is simpler: the small, personal jobs you repeat without thinking. Sorting email, remembering renewals, typing your address for the tenth time, sending the same Friday update. Each takes a minute, and together they take hours.

Tools you already have

Set up your first five

1. 1Filter your inboxCreate a rule for newsletters and one for receipts, so your inbox shows only real messages.
2. 2Put renewals on repeatAdd recurring reminders for registrations, insurance, subscriptions and tax dates, a week before each is due.
3. 3Make three text shortcutsYour email address, your business address and a sentence you type every day.
4. 4Save your top repliesTurn the three messages you send most into templates.
5. 5Batch the routineSchedule regular updates and posts in one sitting each week instead of one at a time.

Where Kahu fitsKahu AssistKahu Assist is an AI agent that runs your website, marketing, bookings and follow-ups from one chat, and asks before anything goes live. You keep the yes; it does the typing.Connects to your site, WhatsApp, calendar and emailAsks before anything goes liveSet up from one 15-minute chatSee Kahu Assist →Fill Thursday’s empty slots and let the cafe know the new brunch hours.Kahu · 3 actions readyTwo Thursday gaps at 11:00 and 14:30. Drafted messages to 6 waitlisted customers.Updated the hours on your site and Google profile to Sat–Sun 8–2.One post about the new hours, using your Sunday counter photo.ChangeApprove all

Where AI fits

Rules and templates handle tasks that are exactly the same every time. AI helps with the ones that are nearly the same: replying to an enquiry, summarising a long email thread or turning voice notes into a to-do list. Let it draft and keep yourself as the one who sends.

What to keep doing yourself

• Paying bills and approving payments: automate the reminder, not the decision, unless it is a fixed bill you trust.
• Replies to complaints or upset customers.
• Anything that goes to someone for the first time.
• Reviewing your automations every few months, so nothing runs on out-of-date rules.

Frequently asked questions