Three easy
automations.

Your inbox stops being a to do list written by strangers. Newsletters, receipts and software notices go somewhere else automatically. What is left is mail an actual person sent you.

You need: Gmail, or Outlook. Nothing else.

Look at my inbox from the last 30 days.

Tell me the 10 senders taking up the most space
that are not actual people writing to me.

For each one give me:
- the sender name and email address
- roughly how many emails they sent
- whether I have ever replied

Then tell me which ones are safe to filter out
of my inbox, and which ones I should keep seeing.

The steps, click by click

1. 1

   Open Gmail on a computer, not your phone. This one is fiddly on a phone and takes two minutes on a laptop. Click into the search box at the top and type the word unsubscribe, then press enter. Everything that comes back is a machine talking to you. That is your list.

2. 2

   Click the first email in that list to open it. Look at the top right of the message itself, not the top of the screen, and find the three little dots. Click them. A menu drops down.

3. 3

   In that menu choose Filter messages like these. A box opens with the sender's address already filled in for you. You do not need to type anything. Click Create filter at the bottom right.

4. 4

   Now tick two boxes: Skip the Inbox, and Apply the label. When you tick the label one it asks you to choose a label, so click New label and call it Reading. Then tick Also apply to matching conversations, which is the one that cleans up the ones already sitting in there. Click Create filter.

5. 5

   That sender is now handled forever. Go back to your search results and do the same four clicks for the next one. Do five senders and stop. Five is enough to feel the difference, and you can always do more next month.

6. 6

   Last job. In the search box type is:unread older_than:30d and press enter. Tick the box at the very top left to select everything, then click the Archive button, which is the box with the down arrow. Archive is not delete. Every one of those emails is still findable in search. You just will not be looking.

Done when: Open your inbox tomorrow morning. If everything sitting in it was typed by an actual person, it worked.

If it looks different: If your Gmail looks different, you are probably on the phone app, where the three dots menu does not offer filters. Do it on a computer once and it applies everywhere, phone included. On Outlook the same job is called Rules and lives under the Settings gear.

One message each morning with yesterday in it. Bookings, cancellations, and what came in. You stop opening the practice software to find out what happened.

You need: Your practice management software. Make.com only if that software cannot schedule a report.

I run a physio clinic and we use Cliniko.
Change that to whatever software you actually use.

I want one message emailed to me every morning at 7am
with yesterday's numbers: appointments booked,
cancellations, and money taken.

Can Cliniko email a report on a schedule by itself?
If yes, tell me exactly where to click to set it up.
If no, say so plainly and tell me the simplest way
to do it without writing any code.

I am not technical. Assume I have never used
an automation tool before.

The steps, click by click

1. 1

   Try the two minute version first, because most people never check and end up building something they did not need. Log in to your practice software and find the Reports menu. Look for a report that covers a day, usually something like Appointments or Daily takings.

2. 2

   Open that report and look at the buttons around it for the words Schedule, Subscribe, or Email this report. If one of those exists, click it, choose daily, set the time to 7am and put in your own email address. You are finished. Genuinely. Skip the rest of this section.

3. 3

   Only if there is no schedule option, go to make.com and create a free account. On your dashboard click Create a new scenario. It will show you an empty circle with a plus in it. That circle is the thing that starts your automation.

4. 4

   Click the circle and search for Schedule. Choose Every day and set the time to 7am. This is the part doing the real work. Everything after it is just deciding what the message says.

5. 5

   Click the plus to add the next step and type the name of your practice software into the search. If it appears in the list, click it and follow the sign in prompts, then choose the action that lists yesterday's appointments.

6. 6

   If your software does NOT appear in that list, stop here. Connecting it manually means API keys, and that is a genuinely technical job, not a fifteen minute one. This is the point to ask whoever does your IT, or to leave this automation for later. Number one and number three are still worth your afternoon.

7. 7

   Add one last step, search for Email, and set it to send to yourself. Only yourself. The message will contain patient numbers, so it does not go to a shared or reception inbox.

8. 8

   Click Run once at the bottom left before you turn anything on. Read the email that arrives and check the numbers against what you see when you log in. If it is wrong today it will be wrong every morning for a year, and you will stop trusting it by Thursday.

Done when: A message lands tomorrow at 7am and the numbers in it match what you see when you log in.

If it looks different: If the report in your software shows the right numbers but will not schedule, that is normal and not your fault. Plenty of practice software can show a report and not email it. Take the two minutes to bookmark the report instead, and come back to the Make version when you have someone technical for an hour.

You find out the moment a review lands, and a reply is already drafted. This is the one everyone forgets, because reviews arrive silently and a week later nobody has answered.

You need: Google Business Profile. Claude, or any AI assistant, for the drafts.

You are helping me reply to a Google review
for my allied health clinic in Australia.

Rules for every reply:
- two sentences maximum
- thank them by first name only
- never mention their condition, their treatment,
  or why they came in, even if they did
- never confirm or deny that they are a patient
- anything unhappy gets invited to a phone call,
  not argued with in public

Here is the review:
[paste the review here]

Write the reply in plain, warm, normal English.
No marketing language.

The steps, click by click

1. 1

   Go to google.com and search for your own clinic by name, while signed in to the Google account that manages your listing. Your business panel appears with buttons like Edit profile and Read reviews. That panel is your Google Business Profile. There is no separate app to download.

2. 2

   Find the settings, usually behind the three dots or a gear icon on that panel, and open the notifications section. Turn on the alert for new reviews and make sure the email address shown is one you actually read. That is the whole automation. Most clinics have simply never opened this screen.

3. 3

   Now write your reply rules once, in a note on your phone. Mine are four lines: keep it to two sentences, thank them by first name, never mention why they came in, and invite anything negative to a phone call. You will paste these a hundred times.

4. 4

   When a review lands, open Claude, paste your four rules, paste the review, and ask for a reply in your voice. Read what comes back before you post it. Every single time. A reply to a health review is a privacy decision and a person makes it, not a machine.

5. 5

   Optional, and only if the email alert is not loud enough. Make.com can push new reviews to your phone or your team chat instead. Skip this unless you already know you ignore that inbox.

Done when: The next review that arrives shows up as a notification, and you answer it the same day instead of next month.

If it looks different: If searching your clinic name does not show you the management panel, you are either signed in to a different Google account or the listing is still owned by whoever built your website. Both are common. Sorting out ownership is a separate afternoon, and it is worth doing, because right now someone else controls what your clinic looks like on Google.