Taming Automation for Intentionality

The lady doth protest too much, methinks

This line from William Shakespeare's Hamlet came to mind the other day when thinking about automation.¹ I know it may not seem like there is a connection between Shakespeare and automation, but the expression is often used to indicate a lack of trust in a statement, a person denies something too strongly which points to the truth of the situation being hidden. The line came to mind because we often automate things in technology in an attempt to fix human errors in a manual process or create shortcuts to find efficiencies, but I have seen in my own workflows that automation can also create an unexpected lack of intentionality in our approaches to things.² We automate the process so much that we unintentionally create a lack of flexibility in the work; we hide what might have once created the exact environment where creativity could thrive.

Every morning, I have automations to turn on lights, set a focus, remind me about various things, and bring up my work applications to start the workday. These are innocuous things, made easier through technology and enabling the mundane to happen without much thought, but as with many things, maintenance is required to upkeep the automation and suit the needs of the context. Automation on its face is all about efficiency, but those efficiency gains can just as easily be lost to over-complication and additional effort that is simply different from the original task.

The application-opening automation is the one that started me down this path, with many of the applications being useful but potentially unnecessary in my current context. However, I have the automation in place, so I let it happen and go about my day; last week, I noted a lack of intentionality about what applications open and how it affects my mood at the start of the day. Instead of coming in with a fresh perspective, ready to choose my path and make progress on strategic things, I am inundated with notifications and immediately begin putting out the fires that have cropped up in my absence.

Today, I started the day without the automation. It was refreshing. Don't get me wrong, I still opened most of those applications, but the process being on my terms meant that I was able to start more slowly, begin by thinking through the action. "Do I need to open Mail?" "No. I checked it on the bus ride in and I should start my day with Forever ✱ Notes and iA Writer (😉) instead)."

Suffice it to say, I have plenty of ways that I can use my time and I often have things that fall by the wayside as I work through the morning fires (see the fits and starts of my writing of late). I will then get to the end of my day thinking, "where did all the time go?" Similarly, I have goals that take focus, time, and effort, but if I am leaning on old thinking to smooth a rough operational edge that once led to more creativity or intentionality, then perhaps I need that edge to be rough, a reminder to stop and think about a process for a second. I will write more on this, including a rundown of whatever I end up using, but for now, I think I am going to delete that one automation as a means to reset the morning process.

1. My original thought was "The lady doth automate too much, methinks" as a play on it, but I thought that was a bit much. ↩

2. There are at least two XKCD comics on this phenomenon here and here. The former is a chart showing the amount of time you may spend making something more efficient; the latter shows the theory versus the reality of automating a task. ↩