Automate Your Busy Work: Do Less, Achieve More, and Save Your Brain for the Big Stuff
Aytekin Tank
Wiley (May 2023)

How specifically you can maximize your potential — and stay sane while doing it

Henry Ford’s assembly lines demonstrated that machines don’t replace people. Rather, they are replaced by other people who know how to work with machines. In Future Shock (1970), Alvin Toffler observes, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” I was again reminded of that prediction as I worked my way through Aytekin Tank’s book, Automate Your Busywork.

Tank immediately establishes a collaborative rapport with his reader by skillfully using first-person PLURAL pronouns and direct address. Many readers will have the same reaction that I did, that he wrote this book specifically written for me. He had me at the outset:

“We’re all drowning in busywork. We all have too much to do. Despite all our technology — or maybe because of it– so many of us spend our days fighting busywork that distracts us from our higher purpose.

“What would you do if you could eliminate the dull and repetitive tasks you hate? If you could have back all of the hours you spend treading water, trying to stay one step ahead of your ever-expanding to-do list?”

As Tank explains, his ideas about work and automation “have evolved over the years, but a few principles continue to hold true:

o “Your productivity is not the problem.” He identifies what it is and explains HOW to solve it.
o “Work isn’t going anywhere.” So what? He explains HOW to focus on what must be done and done well.
o “If you have a manual or repetitive task, you can automate it.” He explains HOW to focus on what can’t be automated.
o Modern work requires a machine for success. Replace linear thinking with circular thinking.
o Automation cannot happen overnight. Circular thinking about automation can happen immediately. Tank explains HOW.

Why bother to automate what can and should be automated? Tan identifies seven specific benefits:

1. Overcome human limitations
2. Increase speed
3. Document processes
4. Maintain consistency
5. Enable continuous improvement
6. Enable complexity
7. Lower costs

Tan makes brilliant use of various reader-friendly devices that include checklists, bullet points, action step sequences, and boxed mini-commentaries (e.g. “Some Truths About Creativity”). Of special interest to me are his “Exercises” strategically located throughout his narrative. They serve two separate but equally important functions: The exercises force the reader to focus on key points, and, they suggest how to apply them. Here are five:

o ‘What Do You Want to Fix the Most?” (Page 14)
o “Prioritize Each Day’s Most Important Task” (19)
o “Email Filters” (32)
o “Which Workflows Can I Automate/” (48)
o “Your Impact/Effort Matrix” (54)

John Kotter once observed that the most difficult change to achieve is to change how people think about change. In a similar vein, Tom Kelley and his brother David have devoted their lives and careers to helping as many people as possible to think more creatively about creativity. It is important to keep in mind that ultimate success will depend on your ability to automate busywork from your efforts to automate busywork.

I highly recommend that Automate Your Busywork be read in combination with two others: Age of Invisible Machines: A Practical Guide to Creating a Hyperautomated Ecosystem of Intelligent Digital Workers, written by Robb Wilson with Josh Tyson and Workforce Ecosystems: Reaching Statrfgeic Goals with People, Partners, and Technologies,co-authored by Elizabeth J. Altman, David Kiron, JeffSchwartz, and Robin Jones.

Here are two concluding suggestions: Highlight key passages, and, keep a lined notebook near at hand while reading Automate Your Busywork in which you record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references as well as your responses to the questions posed and to lessons you have learned. (Pay close attention to the “Key Points” at the end of chapters.) These two simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.