I used to think automation and artificial intelligence made my life easier.
But this week, I started thinking that automation helps me in a different, more impactful manner.
I’ve been a user of IFTTT, Zapier, Shortcuts, and AppleScript most of my life. In my first professional job, I wrote quarterly FCC reports for the television station. Instead of manually writing each one, I stored all the data in a spreadsheet, and did a mail merge in Word once a quarter.
It took me minutes to write 12 weeks of reports.
I love automation.
Thanks to @shelpful and her Instagram video, I realized automation helps me in a more foundational way.
Automation is a superpower
Automation helps me make sense of the many voices in my head, calm the voices in my head, and create a semblance of order, where there once was only chaos and anxiety in my mind.
Using the FCC report example, automation was motivating to me not because it made my life easier. No, it was motivating because it gave me a time and place for everything related to those FCC reports.
I didn’t need to write a report every week. I just needed to fill a few cells in a spreadsheet before or after each show.
I didn’t need to remember to do the report each week.
I ran the mail merge once a quarter.
A renewed purpose for automation?
What if our purpose for automation and artificial intelligence isn’t to make our lives easier? What if we use them as tools to help us make sense of a world pushing and pulling us in a thousand directions? What if we use them as tools to facilitate moving through a world not designed for neurodivergent people?
I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure this out too.