So, this cool thing happened: A long-time fellow Medium writer of mine, Aytekin Tank, who's also the CEO of tech company Jotform, asked me to summarize his brand new book, Automate Your Busywork. I've been reading Aytekin's work for years, so it was an honor to be asked.
That said, as you can imagine, we get tons of "summarize my book" requests, which is why, a while ago, we formalized the process into a paid marketing package. Thankfully, Aytekin's publisher came with a marketing budget, which is why today, I get to share with you an in-depth summary from a great book.
Automate Your Busywork will help you reduce stress, get more done, and find time for your most meaningful work — all thanks to the "Automation Flywheel," a simple but sophisticated model Aytekin developed all the way from his humble beginnings in rural Turkey to running a Silicon Valley-based online form builder with over 20 million users.
To celebrate the release of our summary of Aytekin's book, I'd like to give you 3 short but instantly useful lessons which, in turn, were taken from just the first lesson of our summary. If you want more, you can read our summary, which went online just a few short minutes ago, or, and I recommend this wholeheartedly, buy a copy of Aytekin's book.
Let's go!
1. Take 5 Minutes to Make a "Fix It" List of Your Most Dreaded Tasks
Before you can automate and optimize anything, you'll need to know what's important from what's not. In as little as 15 minutes, Aytekin says, you can separate the wheat from the chaff and generate both ideas and motivation for your automation journey for months.
The very first step is to quickly jot down your most dreaded tasks. Spend just 5 minutes on this, and listen to what your gut tells you.
"I hate ironing." "I always procrastinate on PowerPoint slides." Which tasks do you not look forward to at all? What makes you run to the fridge or the TV? Which of these tasks are recurring?
Think about these questions for a few minutes, then write down your answers. That's your initial "Fix It" list — a list of tasks you can use to slowly begin automating the work you don't like and that takes too much of your precious time.
2. Ask 3 Questions to Identify Your Most Meaningful Work
In the second half of your initial automation brainstorming session, ask yourself the following 3 question to discover what kind of work you actually look forward to and that has meaning:
What do you enjoy doing the most?
What would you like to save your brain power for?
What delivers the most impact?
You can spend around 10 minutes on this. Why twice as long as identifying what's not working? Because in the beginning, motivation is more important than plans.
Having a clear pictures of which tasks are important to you and why, what moves the needle and truly deserves to be done, will provide plenty of fuel to carry you through the initial upfront work that automation requires before annoying tasks forever vanish off your plate.
3. Do a Busywork Audit on 1 of 4 Time Frames to Decide What to Automate First
With your "Fix It" and "Meaningful Work" lists in hand, you now have everything you need to start auditing where time gets lost throughout your day and why.
Aytekin suggests using one of the following 4 time frames for your first "Busywork Audit." Pick whichever one feels most comfortable for you!
Hourly – Pause after every hour of work to write down how valuable the activity was and how you feel about doing it.
Periodic – Stop at 3-4 inflection points throughout your day to note down frustrations, how much time you spent in flow, and which unexpected tasks popped up.
Daily – Take 10 minutes at the end of your day to write down whether you accomplished what you set out to do.
Comparison – Make a to-do list in the morning. Then, at the end of the day, take some notes on how you planned the day would go vs. how it actually went.
Knowing where your productivity veers off throughout the day and how long those distractions take will show you what will have the biggest positive impact when being automated. Your Busywork Audit will allow you to pick what to automate first, but for that step, I suggest you...
To implement your automations and benefit from them forever, Aytekin has developed his own model over decades. There's a little sneak peek below, and for more details, you can read our summary or buy the book!
As a solo entrepreneur running a business with minimal outside help, I can confirm that, if applied correctly and to the right things, automation can be a godsend. Even this very email relies on plenty of automation technology to make it safe and sound to your and tens of thousands of other inboxes!
Like all good things, automation works best when it is truly breathed and lived — a philosophy and lifestyle more so than a "get-productive-quick" hack. That said, asking ourselves questions about why we do what we do can bear fruit quickly.
If you spend only a few minutes discerning what's meaningful from what's just noise, you might see lasting changes within a few short days. Go on. Try it! Upgrade your productivity and...
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