There are Tools, There's Workflow, and then There's Automation

Yesterday, I shared with you a cool way I was getting more value from YouTube. It involved using some tools: a Google Chrome plugin, YouTube, a text editing software, and ChatGPT, oh and my note system. A lot of tools. I described a workflow. It's a good enough one for what I'm doing.

The next stage after tools and workflow is automation. Any time you can automate a task, you earn time back to work on things that matter more.

Guess which of the three most people skip?

The Goal is to Use Your Time as You Wish

This is always the goal. Right? You don't want to work on Friday why? Because you have other things you'd rather be doing. You hate filling out time sheets? We've got a Time Tracker app you can use on monday.com to do it FOR you.

Automation feels difficult, until someone makes it easier. Tools that do it for you make it a lot more fun. Scripts. All that stuff. (We sell workflow and automation solutions, too.)

Start with tools. Then you figure out workflow. Then, when you can, see if there's a way to automate some of it. Sometimes there isn't. That's okay. We all have to be ducks swimming mode sometimes (right, Carey?). But where we CAN find ways to automate, why wouldn't you?

It can be little things, too

I bought a little 3 cup rice cooker the other day. You put in a cup of rice, two cups of water, push the only button on the thing, and walk away. That's cool. It's easy. But to make it more fun, I have these nifty smart plugs. I can program those plugs in a bunch of ways. I can schedule them on and off. I can even set conditions. See what I'm getting at? I can automate it.

Now, automating my rice cooker won't change my life all that much. As it is right now, it's better that I have to get my butt up out of the office chair, stretch, look off into the distance, walk over, and flip the button down. At least I'm moving a teensy tiny bit.

But you see the point, right? If you automate the little things, you have room to think more and spend more time on the big things.

My example from yesterday about not watching the YouTube video and instead analyzing the transcripts with the help of ChatGPT is a way to get back more time. I don't have to watch a 45 minute piece to get some advice. I can slurp it out of analysis done by my robot buddy and then dive in and focus.

At Work, It's Much More Obvious

If you have to spend 2/3 of a day updating the spreadsheets that explain the work you're doing, that means you're only getting at most 1/3 of your day to do the work. But naturally, there will be meetings where everyone talks about the spreadsheet. You'll probably have meetings so now let's say 4/5 of your day is about that and not the actual work.

Wouldn't some automation be well received? Don't you want the annoying parts of the job to be lessened so you can work on the exciting parts?

That's what we're talking about.

Do you automate anything? Do you WISH certain things were automated?

Chris...