Automation - Designing Your Life With Intention and Efficiency

Automation is a part of the modern day world. It wasn’t something that existed in the past to the general public. In the last 20-30 years, automation has certainly made its way into all facets of our lives and I think depending on how you design your life and intentionally apply automation to your, there is a significant upside to its use.

Now, what is automation?

In general usage, automation can be defined as a technology concerned with performing a process by means of programmed commands combined with automatic feedback control to ensure proper execution of the instructions. The resulting system is capable of operating without human intervention.

Whether that is something simple like connecting to a home WiFi network once we get home, continuing a podcast where we left off when our phone connects with our car’s bluetooth, or maintaining a certain thermostat temperature throughout the day, technology has come a long way to accomplish those feats in an almost magical way.

It has gotten us to this point because we can focus on what matters most instead of what needs to be done. And it’s greatest benefit is accomplishing tasks that regularly need to be accomplished but require a small mental load - menial tasks if you will.

As I get older, automation has become something that that I value more and more because I recognize the value of my time more and more.

But there’s a catch.

The key is to remain certain that automation is working for you. As such, the important part is to ensure the automation is designed specific to your needs and that you are willing to change and/or cancel the automation if it no longer is beneficial.

Sometimes automation becomes a set it and forget it problem, where the automation no longer is beneficial or appropriate for your needs. But since you haven’t kept up with it or paid attention to it, it does something you didn’t want.

For example, a financial automatic savings plan that moves $500 from an account. Let’s say you open another account and your money instead flows through the new account instead of the old account where the ASP withdraws from. Well, it might be a problem when there’s no more money to draw from.

Another automation is an e-mail filter, filtering emails from the library. If those emails are reporting a late fee or a late return book but you filter the e-mails so they no longer land in your inbox, you might not realize you are late.

Again, automation is only as good as the purpose if fulfills in your life.

So, Automate With Intention.

Remember, automation keeps your attention on the things that matter.

Kinda like in high school math where you start to need to explain your work so it shows you understand what is happening and why you are applying the formulas you are applying, versus just showing the calculation or final answer.

The proof is in the pudding.

So, when you think about automation, apply a lens of whether this automation makes iteasierr or not to focus your attention on what truly matters.

In order to make a massive dent on your life goals, dedicated and persistent work towards those goals is necessary.

By automating aspects of your life to reduce your required presence of mind on regularly occurring tasks, you can better divert your attention towards things that need your active attention and creative problem solving.

The worry and failure to do so by not reigning in your attention and automating things to align with your life goals is that you may find yourself consistently spending 3-4 hours daily going down extremely niche rabbit holes. For example, learning about the world of chainsaws powered by car engines….cause of course that exists.

What Can You Automate In Your Life?

You can automate many things in your life. Depending on how dedicated you are to the craft as well as depending on how much automation works for you versus how much you work for the automation, you can ultimately automate almost all facets of your life.

So let’s talk abouut some.

Automate Your E-mail Via Filters

We live in a world of email bombardment. You started off with a brand new, empty inbox but after years of use, you’re probably into the 100s if not 1000s of unread emails.

Give your email to any retail store? Now they’ll send you deal after deal, promotion after promotion.

What about looking at real estate or pre-developments? Let us send you 15 more emails about 15 other projects.

Or how about your more recently terminated subscription? We miss you. Here’s 15% off to come back to us. Over and over again.

Creating e-mail filters can help you funnel these emails away without you even noticing. That way, you don’t look at the deals unless you want to. Your inbox can remain clean and only fill with unique and important emails that you want to receive - whether that be an email from an old friend reconnecting, or a tracking number for an expected package. Better yet, unsubscribing from e-mail marketing programs makes it so you don’t even need the filter. But in the case you want the option for some retail therapy some day, filters are your friend.

Automate Your Finances With Apps and Automatic Savings

Many apps are available to automate your finances. Whether it’s Mint, YNAB, or any other available banking service, building automation into your finances can be an effective tool to keep track of your money, remind you when you are over-budget, and to track your savings when you have saving goals like a big purchase, a downpayment or a vacation trip planned.

MINT and YNAB have the capability to simply track your expenses and categorize them on your behalf. This lets you loosely set goals for expenses in each category and as you approach those limits, you get notified. You give access to youur bank accouunt information and the rest is automatic.

Automatic Saving Plans can also be a means to automate your finances. They can easily move your money the moment you get it into a separate account for investment to grow your wealth. It removes the temptation to spend because you don’t even see the money sit in your account. It’s already ‘spent’. Whether that’s moving to an ETF portfolio,

The one caveat is we want to make surer that the automation is working for you. I am particular in that I enjoy entering my expenses manually. It keeps my actively attentive to my spending, my saving, and it reminds me of what my savings goals are and whether my behaviours are matching those desired savings goals. If I say I want to save money for a trrip but I keep spending money on eating out, then clearly I don’t seem particularly concerned with saving or am willing to save less to eat out.

Automate Your Meals With Meal Prep Weekends

Now this is a borderline automation. It’s not automatic because meal prep still requires your input to actually cook the food. But I would argue that meal prep automates the meal because it takes out the cognitive component. You don’t need to think. You simply heat up the prepared meal that you made before. Many times, the cognitive aspect of thinking about what to eat, what groceries you have to make the meal, and the time investment to cook Meal prep is an effective tool to offload the cognitive load that is meal prep. By preparing a week’s worth of meals in advance, you can avoid the time and thought needed.

This can allow you to get your food intake quickly and focus your thinking on other things you want to think about, whether that be work, personal projects, time with family, etc.

Automate Your Time Allocation With Scheduling And Weekly Audits

Time is a tough one to allocate in the moment. It can easily derail and detract because of the distractions available to us. Businesses like Meta, Reddit, Youtube, and Tiktok arer designed with the intention of keeping us hooked - keeping us scrolling. And they do a damn good job at it.

If we don’t intentionally assign our time, it can be extremely easy to lose track of time.

So a good thing you can do is audit yourself and have an open discussion with yourself about what truly matters. If de-stressing and relaxing matter, that’s great! How long do you need to de-stress and relax? 4 hours a week? Schedule that time in so you have protected 4 hours of your time!

If you have a personal project you wish to accomplish within the month, how much time do you think you need to allocate for it? If you need 12 hours and you have 4 weeks, designing your weekly schedule to offer 3 hours a week is a good way to target that goal.

Assigning yourself things throughout the week is important because when you have a spare moment, you have a reference to look for. You have a means to determine what is truly important, and what is expected of you to accomplish that week per your own aspirations.

You don’t have time to spend 3 hours scrolling Tiktok because you need 3 hours to learn coding! Or learn to cook a steak! Or learn how to draw!

Finally, Audit Your Automation

Weekly reviews and reflections are important. Sitting down and reflecting on what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what you want to optimize more allows you the space and time to think about how automation either aligns with your life design goals or doesn’t.

You are not expected to get all your automations perfectly suited for you the first time. You need to adjust, modify, adapt and terminate automations as they serve their purpose, stop serving their purpose, orr need modification to adapt to your life.

Remember, automation is only as good as it benefits your life. If it no longerr serves you, you can stop using it.

And have fun! Enjoy it! The whole point is recognizing and enjoying the process because you get to use it to accomplish what you want. It lets you move towards progress in things that make you happy, bring you joy, and feel productive. It’s for you.