Harness the Power of Automation
One of the things many folks with ADHD hate is having to do routine tasks. Once we've mastered something, we're done. Why bother to keep doing something over and over again? We'd rather get on to the next project or task. Yet our day to day life seems to come with a requirement to do relatively small, common tasks, over and over again.
I recently heard that the entire IT industry is driven by the desire to automate seemingly mundane tasks. While I'm not sure that's entirely what motivates the industry, the moment the concept entered my brain, I realized automation was a huge driver in my own IT career. When I can automate tasks that suck my already low willpower levels, I'm a happy guy.
At the end of 2017, I decided to automate my client intake process. Prior to automation, I was creating custom coaching agreements for every client, manually sending invoices and welcome emails, and routinely procrastinating on those tasks. Quite frankly, I hated all of the minutiae that went into the process of enrolling a new client. During a few nights, I was able to harness my hyperfocus to automate the process.
While not the first time it was used, this automation allowed me to be seated at the WKC Dog Show while a new client paid their invoice, received a customized coaching agreement, and then a link to complete a client profile. At the time of implementation, the six to seven hours I spent on automating the process felt wasted as I was implementing it, but it completely paid off the other night. Suddenly the time I spent to automate this process seemed very small compared to the joy I felt when I received the notification email sent once the process completed.
The automation I just described is just the latest example of systems I've put in place to handle repetitive tasks.
There are processes that move things from lists into Evernote, trigger lights to turn on and dim when I watch a movie, signal me that bedtime is nearing, and even help me remember when I need to reorder medications.
During the remainder of 2018, I'll be posting about some of the ways I use automation to simplify my life. Next week I'll talk about the way I use IF(TTT) to automatically move new task items spoken to my Amazon Echo into a custom list within iOS' Reminders app.
What's something you'd like to automate? Is there an automation you'd like me to cover before the others?
Standard disclaimer: Just because you read something on the internet does not mean it's great advice for you. Remember to experiment with what "sounds good" to you, and discard the rest. Also, please pardon the lack of perfection.