Part III · Stop doing every job yourself

Chapter 11: Stop spending Sunday night on admin.

Time15 minutes a day for two weeks, then 90 a week

You needA notes app, your inbox

You leave withYour admin log, a weekly block, saved replies, an order sheet and a compliance calendar

The leak

Admin doesn’t arrive in one pile. It drips in all day: a supplier email, an invoice, a staff swap, a permit renewal notice, a reply to a party inquiry. So it gets done in the gaps, on your phone at the pass, and then in one exhausted batch on Sunday night.

In a Square and American Express study of UK restaurant owners, the average owner spent 13 hours a week on admin (Restaurant Online). That’s more than a full day a week not spent on the food, the room or your life.

What it costs you

The fix starts with a two-week log, because nobody knows where their admin time actually goes until they write it down. For 10 working days, note every admin task, how long it took, and one of three labels:

Label	Meaning	What happens to it
Only me	Needs the owner’s judgment	Goes in your weekly block
Someone else	Could be done with clear instructions	Becomes a checklist (Chapter 10) and gets handed off
AI drafts	Writing, sorting, reading, calculating	AI does the first draft, you approve

Mirela’s log showed about 9 hours a week of admin, scattered across every day. Roughly a third was writing replies AI could draft, and a third was work her manager could own with a checklist. The Admin Kit in the kit adds up your log by label for you.

The weekly admin block

Worked example · Mirela is fictional

One protected 90-minute block, same time every week. Mirela’s is Monday at 10am:

Minutes	Task	Chapter
15	Inbox: AI sorts and drafts, you approve and send	This chapter
15	Invoices photographed, Price Tracker updated	1
15	Orders placed from the order sheet	This chapter
15	Last week’s numbers on one page	12
10	Reviews answered	9
10	Next week’s schedule checked against sales	3
10	Compliance calendar: anything due in the next 30 days	This chapter
90	One block, every week

Everything that used to drip in all week waits for Monday, unless it’s urgent. Most of it isn’t.

The fix

Run the two-week log. A note on your phone or the Admin Kit’s log sheet is enough. Then sort it with Prompt 1.
Book your weekly block in your calendar, and treat it like a supplier delivery: it happens.
Build saved replies. Most email apps let you save templates. Make one for each message you write more than twice a month: event inquiry, supplier reorder, job applicant, invoice question. Prompt 2 drafts them from your sent emails.
Triage your inbox with AI. Paste the week’s unanswered emails (without personal details you don’t need to share) into Prompt 3. You get them sorted by urgency, with drafts.
Make an order sheet. List what you order, your par level (what you want on the shelf after delivery) and what’s on hand. Order = par minus on hand. A five-minute count replaces a 30-minute guess. The Admin Kit has one.
Build a compliance calendar with Prompt 4: permits, licenses, inspections, hood cleaning, pest control, fire extinguishers, insurance renewals, tax filing dates. Put each one in your calendar with a reminder 30 days ahead. Check every date against the actual document or your local authority; AI doesn’t know your renewal dates.
Hand off the “someone else” list, one task a week, each with a checklist.

In the kit · a working sheet

Admin KitYour two-week admin log, an order sheet (par minus on hand), the weekly admin block and a compliance calendar. Opens in Excel or Google Sheets.

The prompts

Prompt 1 · Sort my admin log

Here is my admin log for two weeks: task, minutes, label: [paste]. Add up the total time by label and by type of task. Then list the 10 tasks that would save me the most time if handed off or drafted by AI, with a one-line suggestion for each. Show the totals in a table.

Prompt 2 · Build saved replies

Here are emails I’ve sent for [type of message]: [paste 3–5 examples, names removed]. Write one reusable template in my voice, with [brackets] for what changes each time. Under 120 words. Then a one-line subject line.

Prompt 3 · Triage my inbox

Here are this week’s unanswered emails: [paste]. Sort them into: needs me today, needs me this week, someone else can handle, no reply needed. For everything that needs a reply, draft one in my voice, under 80 words. Flag anything involving money, legal issues or a complaint so I read it carefully.

Prompt 4 · Draft a compliance calendar

I run a [type] restaurant in [city, state] with [liquor license / outdoor seating / delivery]. List the recurring permits, licenses, inspections, maintenance and filings a restaurant like mine typically has, with how often each usually recurs. Format it as a table: item, typical frequency, who to check with. Mark it clearly as a starting list I must verify, not legal advice.

Three decisions this week

i.Start the log today, on your phone.

ii.Your weekly block: the day, the time, and who covers the floor.

iii.Your first three saved replies.

Your takeaway · Chapter 11

What you leave with

Everything from this chapter you can keep. No email needed.

11Admin KitYour two-week admin log, an order sheet (par minus on hand), the weekly admin block and a compliance calendar. Opens in Excel or Google Sheets.
This chapter’s 4 promptsReady to paste into your AI assistant. Fill in the [brackets] first.
The prompt libraryEvery prompt in the guide, by chapter, as one PDF.