Automation Audit: Finding areas of automation to make less decisions.

In 2023, I set out to make less decisions. Why? Because how can I focus on the stuff that truly matters when I’m worried about having enough laundry detergent?

But seriously, we waste way too much time chasing rabbits that aren’t worth our time. Do lions eat bugs? No, because the energy wasted isn’t worth the energy gained. So how do you take that mindset to your daily life?

If you live in most parts of the U.S. , you live in an information rich and accessible world. I can get ice cream delivered to my house, pretty much whenever I want. So you’re telling me you can’t figure out how to save more of your most precious resource, time? There’s obviously an added cost for delivery (don’t get me started on Doordash/Grubhub prices) but that doesn’t mean it has to be expensive.

Cat Shit

Here’s a problem I had; I would have to drive each month to go to the store to get cat litter. “Oh such a big problem,” my wife would say sarcastically but at 8pm on a Thursday night when you finally get the motivation to clean the cat litter, do you really want to have to drive to PetSmart? The answer’s no, that sucks. So in doing an audit of stuff I hated to do but had to anyways, I wondered, can I automate this?

After a quick google search, I figured out I could set up an automatic delivery from Chewy.com for the food and cat litter needs of my two feline friends. Here’s the breakdown: (I also listed the prices here so one day I can show my kids, “back in my day cat litter was less than $20!”)

As you can see, litterly (sorry) the same price. BUT, I don’t pay for shipping, and most importantly, I put it on a schedule to have it auto delivered to my house every month. So I never need to worry about it again. It just shows up at my door.

With that example, what can you do today to save time? What are the automations you could look to apply that wouldn’t cost you much, but save you from making less decisions?

Making it Work

So there are two main questions you need to answer:

1. What can I automate?
2. What is the timeframe of the automation?

Finding Automations

I mean, didn’t you know the answer was just going to be ‘Google’ it? Besides that, start finding people on social media who automate things. Start including yourself in media ecosystems (TikTok, Podcasts, news articles, etc.) that talk about the things you want to know. You don’t have to do this in a vacuum; there are plenty of resources out there (this blog included!).

Most online retailers have some sort of automated ordering practice, especially when it comes to grocery type items. Do your research and compare costs to see if there are hidden costs added to the costs of goods; hint: it’s not always in the shipping cost. Spend a bit of extra time up front doing some research, and reap the benefits for years to come. The amount of time it took me to set up cat litter, has far outweighed my time savings, gas savings, and decisions savings than have come out of it.

I’m also interested to see if you have any tips or places that you go to find ways to automate more of your life? Maybe there’s a service that does more of this for you. I’m interested to hear!

Timeframe

One of the biggest things holding me back from automating more, was the question of “how much” of this do I need? You don’t want to under order and not have enough of the item or over order and look like you’re stockpiling for some sort of cat shit war. I found a really simple trick: take a sharpie and write on the product when you bought it. Then when you’re done, you know exactly how long it took you to use that product. Right now, it takes me about 55-60 days for me to use my body wash so I now know if I put it on a two month schedule, I might need to just buy one extra a year, and I’ll never run out.

Why does it matter?

Well, your time is worth something right? As I started this out, I wanted to build my life where I made less decisions each day, so that I can spend more time focusing on the important ones. Instead of driving to my local store to pick up more stuff, I can spend time with my family.

This by no means is a perfect science, but it’s sure better than wasting my time on stuff I don’t need to.