Here's what happens when you hate doing something but still need to do it: you procrastinate until the last possible moment, then do it badly while resenting every second, then promise yourself you'll figure out a better way next time.

(Next time arrives. You don't figure out a better way. The cycle continues.)

Maybe it's invoicing clients. Maybe it's updating your CRM after every sales call. Maybe it's that weekly report your boss wants in a very specific format that makes no sense to anyone, including your boss. Whatever it is, you know the feeling — that low-grade dread that starts building on Sunday night, the elaborate mental negotiations you have with yourself about why you could probably put this off until tomorrow, the way doing the thing badly somehow feels worse than not doing it at all.

I used to have a client onboarding process that I absolutely despised. 17 different steps scattered across 4 different platforms. Send the contract. Wait for it to come back signed. Create the project folder. Set up the shared workspace. Import their brand assets. Configure their analytics. Send the welcome email with twelve different login details they'd inevitably lose.

The whole thing took 90 minutes when I did it perfectly, which was never, because I hated every single step. So I'd rush through it, forget things, have to circle back with "oh, one more thing" emails that made me look disorganized and made them question whether they'd hired the right person.

But I decided to change things up. I stopped trying to hate it less and started making it impossible to mess up.

I mapped out every step I was avoiding. Then I built a system that did most of them automatically.

Contract gets signed? Zapier creates the project folder and sets up their workspace. Welcome email sends itself with all the right links. Analytics configure themselves. What used to take 90 minutes of teeth-grinding frustration now takes 12 minutes of clicking "approve" on things that are already done correctly.

And once I removed the friction, I stopped hating it. Hard to hate something that basically does itself.

Takeaway
You don't have to learn to love the work you hate. You just have to make it so easy that hating it becomes irrelevant.

Still avoiding things I could probably automate,
Jamie