The holidays are supposed to be about slowing down and taking a breather, right? Well, not for me. My end-of-year turned into a season of reflection, realignment, and rolling up my sleeves to set my business up for success. Waiting for the "perfect time" to streamline everything? That’s a luxury I realized I couldn’t afford.
Instead of starting January in a scramble, I leaned into new systems—especially AI—to simplify and supercharge my business operations. Here's how it all unfolded.
The Decision to Pivot
Last year, I made a big shift—a hard one. I transitioned from digital ops consulting to focusing on building SaaS products and micro-tools.
Juggling too many services for too many types of clients? Not scalable. It was stressful, messy, and ultimately unsustainable.
had to make some hard calls—narrow my focus, streamline my work, and say goodbye to services that no longer fit my long-term vision. And as I did, I kept coming back to one big question:
How do I make all of this easier on myself?
I doubled down on figuring out how AI could lighten my workload. So I could start the new year ahead. Here’s what I focused on:
Time Management: Finding a way to schedule smarter, not harder.
Inbox Management: Reducing clutter and focusing on what actually mattered.
System Building: Using AI to support my shift into SaaS development.
Calendar Chaos Meets AI Scheduling
Managing my calendar with scheduling apps was supposed to simplify things. Instead, it felt like I was constantly fighting for control. Every time someone booked a meeting, I’d lose a lunch break, an admin block, or—worse—my financial planning time. And if that planning time got bumped too many times? It wrecked the decisions I needed to make elsewhere.
That’s when a friend (who’s just as obsessed with efficiency as I am) told me about Reclaim AI. They called it the spiritual successor to an old tool I used to love, so I gave it a shot.
And wow.
Reclaim automatically moves all my flexible tasks around my hard meetings and deadlines, meaning my most important routines don’t get sacrificed just because my calendar is a moving target.
Here’s how it works for me:
If I have to schedule something over lunch, my lunch break automatically moves along with anything else that day.
My financial planning time blocks happen twice a month on specific weekdays. If I need to reschedule, Reclaim finds the next available time within my preferred days and times.
I love a good scheduling link and despise the endless back-and-forth of “What time works for you?” But I also don’t want 20 different scheduling links floating around. With Reclaim, I only have three—and I can customize them as one-offs for specific people.
This changed everything:
✅ No more manual calendar adjustments.
✅ Clients love the seamless scheduling experience.
✅ My schedule adapts without constant intervention.
Automating Emails with Labels
I used to be the kind of person who barely glanced at my inbox unless I absolutely had to. In my corporate days, I barely glanced at emails unless I had to. My job wasn’t about responding to messages all day—it was about building things.
But consulting? Whole different game.
Now, my inbox isn’t just where messages go to die—it’s the lifeline of my business. Work, opportunities, client requests, follow-ups—everything flows through it. And unlike before, I can’t just let it pile up and pretend it doesn’t exist. But at the same time, I can’t let it consume me either.
For every client email that matters, there’s an ad, a newsletter I meant to read, and an unnecessary sales pitch trying to convince me to buy something I don’t need.
I needed a system. Not just filters or folders (because let’s be real—I wasn’t going to manually sort things), but something smarter.
A way to triage my inbox so the important stuff got handled and the noise got out of my way.
📂 Billing Documents → "TO/Billing"
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that invoices and receipts come in every format except a standard one.
Sometimes it’s an attachment.
Sometimes it’s just a notification that a payment went through.
Sometimes there’s a receipt, but no invoice.
My old process? A mess. I had to manually download files, forward things to my bookkeeper, and dig through emails whenever I needed to double-check a charge.
Now, I just label them. “TO/Billing” is all it takes.
An automation picks it up, extracts key details like vendor, amount, and transaction type, and logs it in a database. It also downloads attachments (and sometimes the full email as a PDF) into Google Drive, and only forwards documents to my bookkeeper if they actually need to see them.
No more manual sorting. No more hunting for missing invoices.
📌 Action Items → @1day, @3days, @3weeks
Some emails aren’t just messages; they’re work waiting to be done. Instead of letting them sit (and inevitably get lost), I label them with @1day, @3days, or @3weeks.
When I label an email, an automation kicks in:
1️⃣ AI scans the email for an explicit due date. If one’s there, great.
2️⃣ If not, it uses the label itself (@1day, @3days, etc.) to set a deadline.
3️⃣ The task is sent to Todoist, complete with a summary of the email and a direct link to it.
What This Changed for Me:
✅ I can find transaction details in seconds.
When my bookkeeper asks about a line item, I just search my billing database. A single transaction can come with an email notification, a receipt, and an invoice—all containing different levels of detail. Instead of searching my inbox, I have one place to look, where everything is connected.
✅ My inbox finally makes sense.
Between these labels and a few others, I’ve created a system that keeps my inbox sane. I don’t waste time sorting, remembering, or losing track of things—I just label and move on.
Wrapping It Up
At the heart of everything I’ve shared—my inbox, calendar, billing system—it all comes back to time management. And once you start thinking about time, you can’t ignore task management.
For most of the year, I was in reaction mode, building just-in-time automations to solve problems as they popped up. An issue would show up a few times, so I’d patch together a quick fix. And in the moment, it was saving me time. But I was solving today’s problem while creating a maintenance problem for tomorrow.
So during the holidays, I took a step back. I cleaned up my automation debt and rebuilt things with intentionality. Now, I have a solid system in place:
I know exactly how I’m handling my inbox and tracking my billing.
My calendar moves dynamically without me having to fight with it.
I right-sized my task management—switching to a simpler tool that actually fits how I work.
My automations are organized into folders in Relay, so I can easily maintain them.
AI isn’t running my business—but it’s keeping me from running around in circles.
Take Action
If you’re feeling stuck trying to manage every little thing manually, take a breath. There’s a better way.
1 Spot the Repetitive Stuff: What’s eating up your time that could be automated?
2 Test AI-Powered Tools: Reclaim AI for scheduling, Relay for automations and Todoist for task management, or something that fits your workflow.
3 Start Small: Fix one system at a time—no need to overhaul everything at once.
4 Make It Work for You: Customize tools to fit your business, not the other way around.
Your future self will thank you.
Resources
Relay.app - Automation and AI Agents
Todoist - To-Do Lists for Work & Life
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