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Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#61

Post by jonny383 »

I went through a phase of trying to automate _all_ aspects of my life. If I did a task more than 3 times, and it could be automated, I went ahead and wrote some scripts for that.

Anyone will quickly learn there is a trade-off between managing the time it takes to maintain automation and the time you would spend just "doing" said task.

After this realization, I started manually performing tasks, timing them, and storing them in a glorified spreadsheet. Any time automation broke, I timed how long it took to fix, and also put it in the spreadsheet.

I deprecated all automation tasks that did not save me either 10% or more time, or tasks that I found at least some enjoyment in (such as messaging my wife when I would be home, reading my child's school reports regardless of their result).

I have over 140 automation scripts in tact. Some are software-only (interacting with APIs, emails, SMS, scraping) and some have associated hardware (sensors attached, etc).

I have become obsessed with data being generated by this automation, so I now log all events and meta information where possible. This gives me pretty good insight on where pointless items exist in my life (which allows me to just stop doing them, automated or manually) and where important parts also exist.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#62

Post by schappim »

Example 1 (custom hardware).

My wife and I run https://littlebird.com.au and ship 25K orders per year. We found that it was taking too long to fulfil each order using Australia Post.

So I built our own custom WebUSB postage scales and label printer. Creating a consignment is now 1-click.

This enabled us to take the fulfillment process down from 5 minutes to 5 seconds. Across 25K parcels this equals 11-months of work time.

Being a WebUSB based solution, they "just work" with anything running the Blink rendering engine, even Android phones.

You can see the WebUSB Scales and Label Printer in action here:

(30 sec video) https://vimeo.com/334547755/c387957a25

Longer demo:

https://vimeo.com/334563934/915a25eedc

Shopify liked the demo and I got to demo it to their CEO and various teams in Ottawa.

The minimum order quantities on the Postage Scale hardware was 100 units, so let me know if you'd like one :)

Example 2:

I've automated the lodgement of "Australia Post Inquiries" to get a refund when they miss their SLAs. The numbers add up quick over a year.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#63

Post by g96alqdm0x »

jonny383 wrote: post #61

I went through a phase of trying to automate _all_ aspects of my life. If I did a task more than 3 times, and it could be automated, I went ahead and wrote some scripts for that. Anyone will quickly learn there is a trade-off between managing the time it takes to maintain automation and the time you would spend just "doing" said task. After this realization, I started manually performing tasks, timing them, and stori…

Would you mind sharing which automated tasks offered the highest ROI, and some information about how you run them all (i.e., do you use cloud services, or an always on RPi that you run the scripts on)? Also, which libraries have you used for scraping?

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#64

Post by DubiousPusher »

These are a wonderful invention.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079N9FW5B/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_Z...

I also use these.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0748RK2XQ/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_n...

I have made other serious efforts to automate my life and generally found that trying to catch time with homemade Rube Goldberg machines is a bit like trying to catch water with a properly engineered sieve.

After your basic appliances, I've found it's actually quite hard to exchange money for time. A great value I've found is meal prep companies. They are expensive but cheaper than a cook or cleaner and they remove many chores. Debating what to eat, menu planning, grocery shopping and actual prep cooking are greatly relieved.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#67

Post by barbs »

schappim wrote: post #62

Example 1 (custom hardware). My wife and I run https://littlebird.com.au and ship 25K orders per year. We found that it was taking too long to fulfil each order using Australia Post. So I built our own custom WebUSB postage scales and label printer. Creating a consignment is now 1-click. This enabled us to take the fulfillment process down from 5 minutes to 5 seconds. Across 25K parcels this equals 11-months of work…

Excellent! Love the name - Checkout Chick :). Perfectly suits the little bird brand as well!

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#68

Post by barbs »

1zael wrote: post #6

Back when Tinder's API was more open, I had a Python script that would autoswipe everyone in the match queue. Then I'd go through all my matches, manually filter the ones I didn't like, and message the ones I did. It was highly efficient, increased my conversation rate, but didn't really impact my end metrics ;)

There was a hilarious article a few years back about someone who automated every part of the dating process, including the actual dating using a bot on a segway and automatically ordering sex toys. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#70

Post by mthoms »

throw03172019 wrote: post #39
Antoninus wrote: post #32

Hire a cleaner once every 10-11 days to clean my apartment and do the laundry. Its surprising how much time you have if you don’t have to do dishes.

My house is a mess after a week. How’d you come up with 10-11 days?

Thats when he finally runs out of dishes.
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