I disagree, in part. Automation has another huge benefit - avoiding human error.<p>Any time you do math, automate. There are great business-focused tools out there ranging from spreadsheets to CLI stuff like bc, ledger, or R.<p>Also, automating forces you think through the business process in an analytical way. This will be very helpful if you need to refactor your process in the future.<p>What I'd argue for is writing a few small tools that do the mechanical, easy to screw up portions of the job (the math, any complex manipulations) and then reevaluate automation as needed.
There's certainly a plus side to doing administrivia, if it can provide you with implicit feedback in how your doing.<p>With your logs, if you fully automated everything, you might not spot a problem with the server that you otherwise may not have noticed for weeks.<p>Let's say you have one task to complete upon each signup to your product - at least you get a real sense of the rate of signups.<p>(Although in discussing these thing I get the feeling of being pedantic, as I don't know how important they really are - a feeling I get a lot while reading HN.)