How to Automate Grunt Work Without Learning to Program
Recipes for letting you and your brain rest so it can focus on the real, fun and creative work
Surprising news — you don’t need a computer science degree to learn how to automate part of your work to save you some time. You don’t even need to learn how to code.
Truthfully, I’m lazy. I never want to do the same task twice because I want to focus on the big picture, the exciting stuff. I want my energy to go into creative, abstract work.
The idea of automating grunt work is to tune into which things you do in the exact same way every day that could be minimized using a quick trick.
While learning to program can be a fun (or torturous) endeavor, it’s not for everyone! Not everyone has the time, or the resources, to do so; if this is you, I have just the thing for you.
Implementing the following strategies has helped me connect better with others, focus on creativity rather than grunt work, and manage my own feelings of overwhelm and stress.
1. Using templates in emails
If you write a similar email over and over again, it might be easier to have a templated email that you can adapt based on the response you need. This technique saves you from typing out the same information or recompiling links and resources from different places.
If you’re a Gmail user, this platform has this brilliant function for you to save commonly used templates. If your email client doesn’t have this function, you could also save a bunch of your commonly used templates in a word or Google doc.
The idea is to automate all the boring work of synthesizing information that you’ve already put together a million other times. For example, as a teaching assistant for an online course, I’m asked no fewer than 32 times a day quite commonly asked questions like “where is the syllabus?” or “what is the word count policy?”.
Instead of having to locate the syllabus link or have to retype the word count policy 32 times a day, all I have to do is paste the template I have that has all the hyperlinks to the specific paragraph on the online platform we use, including a quick summarized blurb to the answer.
While it seems like less of a human touch, I’ve found that automating the frustrating parts of needing to type out these answers has helped me empathize with students. Most of my frustration comes from re-finding the information that students “should be able to” find on their own. At the same time, it can often be frustrating for students who honestly cannot find this information to be told to “refer to the syllabus”.
By putting this information together, I can send them a succinctly worded explanation and instructions on finding this information on their own for the future. It also gives me space to tailor the opening remarks of the email to validate the stress and frustration that they’re going through without managing my own.
2. Using App Integration Programs
A few websites out there, including IFTTT, Zapier and Integromat, have tapped into this market of people not knowing how to code but desperately needing automation to help with tedious tasks in their lives.
For example, with IFTTT, I have Instagram connected with Twitter, so that it posts any pictures I sent on Instagram as an embedded photo on Twitter. Note that this is quite different from the default feature on Instagram that connects with Twitter, which tweets out a link. Since Twitter often demotes tweets with links and without media in their algorithm, this often works against your favor.
Connecting across social media programs can help you set a system where you post to one social media platform, and it automatically cascades into several other platforms in the format that you want it to appear. Magic?
Never do done work twice (if you can help it).
— Lucy, 2021
I’ve found that IFTTT and Zapier were the two most helpful for me as thus far, I’ve only been using the free versions of these apps. We’re on a budget here, thanks.
IFTTT limits the number of apps you can have but not necessarily the number of times each connection runs, so I use it to link up connections that I want to run regularly.
Zapier, on the other hand, limits the number of times that connections can run, but not the number of apps that you can have. I use it to add variety in the integrations that I want to have that may not run as regularly and use up the quota.
3. Having workflows and decision trees
Having workflows and decision trees save a lot of time on those tasks that you have to do repeatedly. For the longest time, I distrusted this. I genuinely believed that redoing, rethinking, replanning things I do commonly actually doesn’t take that much extra time.
Past me is wrong on so many levels.
First, not only does it take me longer, but it also leads to an increased number of mistakes. No matter how detail-oriented I am as a person, with increased workload and thus increased stress, attention falters.
Having workflows, decision trees, and checklists makes sure that I’m creating the plan when I’m most rested and ready, and then if I have to execute the plan tired and stressed, I can fall back on earlier, rested me to pull me through whatever needs to be done.
Sure, the work doesn’t do itself (unfortunately), but workflows are automating the work needed to go into the organization.
When given that structure of knowing what to do next, you’re taking off mental energy from planning ahead, so you can dedicate your actual energy to doing the work you need to.
Think of it as a recipe.
Take-home points — digest and implement
Automating grunt work doesn’t always mean coding or paying someone exorbitant amounts of money to create a program. Here are my top tips:
- Write and use templates for emails to reduce the burden of recall and organization and wording so that you can focus on connecting with a client (or whoever else you’re communicating with). I firmly believe that this increases rather than decreases connection.
- There are free options for point-and-click automation! Sure, the free options themselves might be limited, but in mixing and matching different programs, I’ve used the strengths of one free plan to make up for the weaknesses of the other free plan.
- Create workflows and decision trees for everything you do more than 3 times. Sure, I’m pretty sure your brain is incredibly smart, but let’s give it a rest and only summon it for the real, creative work. Take the mental burden of planning and re-planning by having a recipe.