How Large Language Models and Automation Give Developers Superpowers 2.0 of 10: Automate the Little Things You Do: Overview
Throughout the day, we perform repetitive tasks. These might include logging into a VPN, checking your email, answering somebody on Teams or Slack, or giving a thumbs-up as a reply. All of these tasks should be automated using either your voice or a single push button so that you can save time throughout the day and your mind can work on other things.
Like any other skill, using automation well takes practice. The more automation and shortcuts you integrate into your workflow, the more productive you will be. As you improve you will see more opportunities to automate. As you climb, one mountain, the peak of the next will come into view.
When you can save five seconds 100 times a day, you will save about 45 minutes a week on just that one task: over a year, that is almost 28 hours!
You are an artist, a machine, a computer and a factory. Automate as much of your work as you can.
Your workflow evolves over time. Pick a new skill or shortcut to work on until it is integrated into your workflow. With a few hours of conscious practice and study, you can easily save 12 minutes daily. This will save you an entire week of work after a year. Use this time to think more deeply about your tasks.
Automation can dramatically improve the health of your hands. Spend less time typing words into your keyboard. Use your voice to control your computer as much as possible. Speech recognition built into the Mac and Windows is excellent and improving constantly. Speaking into your computer for text input takes practice. If I want to edit while I'm speaking, I simply say what I want to say and then go back in a cleanup process and erase unnecessary words.
If you change your input devices to trackballs and trackpads you can keep your hands in a flat, neutral position throughout the day. Over many years, this is important. Many of us are on the keyboard and mouse all day, injuring ourselves. If you've ever had a repetitive strain injury but have to keep typing, you know what this is like.
Break down your small tasks into miniature workflows. For example, to reply to a Teams or Slack notification, you need to:
Bring the app to the forefront
Navigate to the post that you need to respond to
React thumbs up or text response.
These steps should be automated into a single motion or macro.
The next posts in the series will cover the following:
Software
Keyboard shortcuts that already exist
Window snapping
Screen Shots
macros within software tools
operating system automation
Bash scripting
Text editors
Dev Toys
Hardware
Stream Deck
Trackballs
Magic Trackpad and BetterTouchTool
Touch Screens and Gestures
Speech recognition, LLMs and autocomplete
Using autocomplete
CoPilot, Grammarly
ChatGPT & similar LLMs
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