The Prioritization Call: Scoring a Real Task Log
Objective: Given a real week-long task log with hours/week and setup-hour estimates for six recurring marketing tasks, apply the lesson's scoring formula to rank which task to automate first and flag any high-scoring task that should stay human anyway.
You're the sole marketing generalist at Ustraa, the men's grooming DTC brand, and you just finished a week logging every task you did by hand.
Score six tasks with (hours/week x 52) / setup hours, rank them, then check the top candidates against the judgment-call filter before committing to a build order.
Before you start
What you'll need
Free path (everything below is enough to finish)
No account friction, formulas cover everything the ranking needs
The process
1 step
Step 01 of 01
The lesson's Step 2 formula is (hours per week x 52) divided by estimated setup hours; the highest ratio should be built first, not whatever feels most annoying this week.
Six logged tasks: (1) forwarding new leads to a CRM, 3 hrs/wk, 2 hrs setup; (2) writing the weekly customer win-back email, 2 hrs/wk, 15 hrs setup; (3) copying ad spend into a report, 2 hrs/wk, 3 hrs setup; (4) posting the same content to three platforms, 3 hrs/wk, 5 hrs setup; (5) replying to 'where's my order' DMs, 4 hrs/wk, 6 hrs setup; (6) writing the monthly founder newsletter, 1 hr/wk, 8 hrs setup. Which tasks go in the 'automate now' backlog, in what order, and which one should you flag to keep human regardless of its score?
Procedure
- List each task with hours/week and setup hours in adjacent columns
- Add a score column: =(hours_per_week*52)/setup_hours
- Sort all six rows by score, descending
- Flag any top-ranked task that requires brand judgment or high-stakes customer tone before finalizing the build order
Ustraa task-scoring sheet (6 rows) Task Hrs/wk Setup hrs Score Lead-to-CRM forwarding 3 2 78.0 Order-status DM replies 4 6 34.7 Weekly ad-spend report copy 2 3 34.7 Cross-posting to 3 platforms 3 5 31.2 Win-back email writing 2 15 6.9 Founder monthly newsletter 1 8 6.5 Ranked: Lead-to-CRM (78.0) > Order-status DMs (34.7, tie) > Ad-spend report (34.7, tie) > Cross-posting (31.2) FLAG: Order-status DMs scores high but often needs a human read on frustrated customers, automate the routing, not the reply.
Healthy
Lead-to-CRM forwarding lands at the top with the widest score margin (78.0), and the order-status DM task is flagged for judgment despite a high score.
Unhealthy
Automating the founder newsletter first because it 'feels important', even though its score (6.5) is the lowest of the six.
What this means
A high score means a high ratio of recurring time to one-time setup cost, not high importance; a task can score high and still need a human filter layered on top per Step 3.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Team debates which task 'feels' most urgent instead of scoring | Run every logged task through the formula before ranking by gut feel | 30 min |
| A high-scoring task involves customer tone or brand voice | Automate only the mechanical half (routing, logging) and keep the judgment half human | 30 min |
Final deliverable
A ranked automation backlog (6 tasks, scored and sorted) with the top build order and one flagged judgment-call task.
See a reference example
MapmyIndia field-ops task log (excerpt) Task Hrs/wk Setup hrs Score Geocoding request routing 5 4 65.0 Weekly map-accuracy report 3 3 52.0 Enterprise demo scheduling 2 10 10.4 Top pick: Geocoding request routing (65.0), automate first.
Success criteria
You're done when you can:
- Correctly calculates the score for all six tasks
- Ranks tasks by score, not by subjective urgency
- Flags at least one high-scoring task that still needs human judgment