Engineering Better Digital Workflows

Automating the Mundane: Engineering Better Workflows

As engineers, we often spend our days optimizing code for machines, but we completely neglect optimizing workflows for ourselves. If you find yourself doing the same repetitive task more than three times a week, it's time to build a system.

Identify the Bottlenecks The first step to a better workflow is an audit. Track your time for one week. You'll likely find that tasks like sending invoices, triaging emails, or formatting reports consume a disproportionate amount of your energy.

The 80/20 Rule of Automation Don't try to automate 100% of a complex task—that usually leads to fragile, over-engineered scripts. Instead, aim to automate the 80% that is predictable and repetitive, leaving the remaining 20% for human judgment.

For example: I built a custom tool that automatically generates vector PDFs for my clients. It doesn't handle the client negotiation, but it completely removes the friction of file formatting.