Do you have daily tasks that are taking up too much time in your day? How can you automate your everyday tasks?
In Free to Focus, Michael Hyatt suggests self-automation to spend less time on simple tasks. This strategy focuses on creating consistent habits and routines in your daily life.
Check out how to self-automate routines so you don’t have to put meaningful time or energy into them.
How to Automate Your Everyday Tasks
Self-automation ensures that you complete simple-but-important tasks efficiently and frees your mind to focus on more meaningful issues. For instance, if you wake up at the same time every morning, then shower, shave, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush your teeth, and leave for work—in that order—pretty soon that routine will become a habit, and you’ll carry it out more or less automatically. This means that, while you’re carrying out your morning routine, you can be thinking ahead and planning how you’ll tackle that day’s tasks and challenges.
(Shortform note: Hyatt recommends developing work and lifestyle habits in order to “automate” simple tasks, but he doesn’t give much guidance on how. In Atomic Habits, James Clear says that the best way to create new habits and stick with them is to start by identifying what kind of person you want to be. If you commit yourself to becoming, say, a disciplined and devoted worker, you’ll naturally try to develop habits in line with that identity. For instance, you might start waking up earlier than you’re used to—this may be difficult at first, but over time, you’ll find that it just becomes part of your routine. Clear adds that, eventually, you’ll internalize your new identity and start waking up early simply because that’s the kind of person you are, rather than because you’re consciously choosing to do so.)
Additional Benefit: Automating Your Mindset
Hyatt adds that another reason to create routines is that habits also serve as cues for you to get into certain mindsets.
If you always start your workday by, say, checking your emails, then opening your inbox will subconsciously signal to you that it’s time to be focused and productive. Similarly, a consistent end-of-day habit (perhaps turning off your work computer at the same time each day) will let your mind know that it’s time to stop thinking about work. This will free you up to focus on other important activities like resting or spending time with your family.
Performing small rituals like these throughout the day will help you automatically shift into the right mindsets at the right times. This will enable you to be fully present and engaged with whatever you’re currently doing.
| How Habits Work In Atomic Habits, Clear outlines the four stages of habits to explain why we often find ourselves repeating the same behaviors over and over, whether they’re beneficial or harmful for us. These stages are: 1. Cue: The trigger that initiates your behavior. Continuing the above example, if your workday ends at 5:00, then seeing that time displayed on the clock is the cue for your end-of-day habits. 2. Craving: What the cue prompts you to do. In this case, it makes you want to turn off your computer and be with your family. 3. Response: The actual action or actions you perform (turning off your computer and starting your commute back home). 4. Reward: The benefit you gain from performing the habit. Following Hyatt’s reasoning, the reward here is that you now get to enjoy spending time with your loved ones at home. This framework also helps to explain why habits stick, and why trying to create new habits often fails. Clear says that, for a habit to form successfully, it needs to be obvious (cue), attractive (craving), easy (response), and satisfying (reward). Noticing that it’s 5:00, turning off your computer, and enjoying the reward of fulfilling time with your family certainly meets all of those criteria—therefore, it’s an effective habit that will help get you in the right mindset for the rest of the day. |
