After feeling burnt out for years, I took serious action to automate a number of tasks. Since then, I’m nowhere near as stressed as I used to be. I automate a mixture of work-related tasks and areas in my personal life.
6
My Recurring Monthly Expenses
I like keeping track of my income and expenses to ensure I’m maintaining a good cash flow. Beforehand, I used to manually add all of my expenses. This led to me getting stressed because I had to always ensure I added everything myself.
Having automated my own business expenses for a long time, I realized that doing the same with my personal outgoings would save even more time. Fixed monthly expenses, such as my rent and software subscriptions, are now set as recurring. I then only need to add things that are more impromptu.
I track my monthly expenses with Spendee, which also has a feature that allows you to integrate your bank to automate everything. The only reason I don’t use this tool is that the banking service I use is not listed.
5
Malware-Scanning
While scanning for malware is of course important, it’s not something I want to spend a lot of my own time doing. However, this became a problem when I then didn’t scan my device for multiple months. While nothing happened in this period, I quickly realized that I was putting myself in needless danger.
Since automating malware scans, my computer now looks out for threats each day. I use Malwarebytes and am quite happy with it, but at the same time, various great alternatives to Malwarebytes Premium exist. For example, I’d consider Windows Defender if I had a Windows computer.
4
File Backups
It’s very easy to quickly set up a data backup strategy, and one of the main ways I do this is by automating my file backups. Beforehand, I used to back up content whenever I felt like it. This, however, would always put me at the mercy of something potentially going wrong. If that had occurred, I would have lost all of my important files and folders.
I primarily use iCloud to back up my files automatically. All I have to do is go to my iPhone or iPad settings and toggle on the Back Up This [Device] feature. Since I find the 5GB free allowance too limiting, I upgraded to iCloud+ and have no regrets in doing so.
With my computer, I can use Time Machine to automatically back up my device in general. Doing so means I have less to worry about if something goes wrong, and I can quickly restore my computer if I need to wipe everything for whatever reason.
3
My Calendar Schedule
I used to change my schedule each week under the guide of “well, I just want to shake things up and keep it interesting”. However, I have learned from experience that not having a consistent routine has made getting the results I want 10 times more difficult. Moreover, I needlessly stressed myself out.
I’ve now automated most of my calendar schedule by adding a clear routine I can follow each week with minimal changes. However, I also understand that I’ll sometimes need to add things on short notice. With my emails, it’s very easy to add events from Gmail to Google Calendar. I had to enable this in my settings as it’s not turned on by default (I live in the EU).
Tools like Zapier are also helpful for adding events to my calendar, which is also one of the best email productivity tools to save hours.
2
Task Completion
I normally use project management tools to keep track of my daily tasks and bigger assignments. But while they’re good for putting everything in one place, I always forgot to mark tasks as complete. This would inevitably lead to lengthy lists where I had to delete everything myself.
To tackle this problem, I set up automated task completion. Each time I trigger something (e.g., publishing an article), I can mark my project as completed. Many project management tools require you to pay for features like this, but I use Zapier to complete my desired results.
Besides automating tasks in different software tools, it’s also possible to automate daily tasks in Windows 11 and on other operating systems.
1
Phone Focus Modes
Focus Modes are one of the best ways I stop myself from getting distracted while I work. To save time, I automate when I want each one to switch itself on. Time-based activations can work, but location-based Focus Modes are much better for me.
With this feature, I can turn on my work Focus Mode when I arrive at my coworking space and the workout one when I’m at my gym. This takes very little time to set up, and from my experience, it has been a complete game-changer.
Automating my daily tasks has made avoiding burnout much easier, and A few simple changes have led to a significant improvement in my overall well-being. I’m more productive, too, which is a nice byproduct.
