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... is an edit button.

Some people believe that building automated workflows is a better use of their time than doing the rote work that the automation is meant to fix. The thinking is, you put in some up-front hard work, and the payoff is more free time in the future. Even more people believe that automation is a sure-fire way to give future-you a terrible headache.

It is not the automations themselves that are a source of stress, but it is the challenge to maintain them, and the frustration when they stop working the way you initially intended them to. When you "set and forget" an automation, the theory you crafted around this code disappears, and the automation becomes legacy code. Automations succeed when you create systems that allow for refactoring code as quickly as you made them in the first place.

One such way of creating these types of refactoring-systems is with an edit button. At Val Town, within every automation artifact we create, we always include an edit button that links directly to the code that runs the automation. That way, if anyone on our team sees something wrong, they can immediately navigate to the project repo and make the necessary refactor.

A good analogy would be keeping your office's cleaning supplies in an publicly-known, and easy-to-access location. An office is likely to be clean if the requisite tools to maintain it are close at hand. If the space gets dirty, and no one knows where the cleaning supplies are, or if they're kept in a locked cabinet where only one person has the key, no one is going to feel a sense of ownership over the cleanliness of the office. Alternatively, if the supplies are always kept out in the open, it invites a sense of ownership across all individuals to help maintain the space.

pizza

Automations work when the friction to maintain them is as low as possible. Some Automations may work perfectly on the first try, but most will need some amount of attention and care to keep them working. A good analogy would be keeping your office's cleaning supplies in an publicly-known, and easy-to-access location. A shared space is more likely to be clean if the requisite tools to maintain it are close at hand.

• The most impactful thing feels like a common task
• Example of how someone did the most common task
• Why others fail the common task
• Why the common task seems, at first, to not be impactful
• Assure that the common thing will change over time
• 2nd example of how someone else did the common thing

• What seemed assured today was not so in the past
• good analogy - "This baby can't do anything"
• This is a common misconception
• Just trying to survive is often the most optimal path
• Actionable advice on the topic

• Example of a surprising tactic that feeds into advice
• Seems counter intuitive, right?
• Institutional/historical reason why this seems counter intuitive
• Emotional reason why this seems counter intuitive
• Societal reason why this seems counter intuitive

• Famous person example w/ catchy phrase
• Further defining catchy phrase
• zero-ing in on what exactly the phrase means
• addressing common pitfalls

• analogy
• example

stomach ache