We’re seeing this trend also in the personal productivity industry where it has become much more accessible to automate things. Back in 2009, if I wanted to automate anything I had to learn how to code, read a 500-page manual and dive into online forums.
Nowadays it’s mostly point-and-click solutions and it’s getting easier to automate anything you want in your life and on your devices. We call this Personal Automation.
Inside the Dojo – our online community that comes with accountability, coaching, and ongoing training – we’ve developed new training materials around this topic so members get the cutting-edge stuff first. This started about 6 months ago and now we’d like to share some of that with the public.
At Asian Efficiency we believe that you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your health, family and important commitments to crush your to-do list. You should be able to get the important things done in the time you have. With Personal Automation, that has become even more impactful. We’ve seen it ourselves where team members are saving 5-8 hours a week and have no idea what to do now with this newfound free time.
So we started to roll out Personal Automation materials for Dojo members. As a Dojo member, you can get first access to everything we do at AE. It’s one of the many perks. That includes also live coaching calls with the AE team and we did one last month on Personal Automation. We coined this term to show you how you can apply automation concepts to your personal life. Whether it’s stuff you do on your computer, things you want to have done around your home, or anything else you want to streamline in your life.
We recorded it and all members get access to this recording. Since the content was so powerful and impactful, we’ve decided to make it available to the public. You’ll discover:
- The 3-Step process for automating repetitive tasks
- How to figure out what to automate first
- How you can get started without any coding skills and technical knowledge
- How someone saved over 106 hours through one automation trick
- How to save time with automated email rules
And much more.
To make it efficient, we’ve included timestamps for sections of this recording so you can jump around and get what you want. Although we do recommend you watch the first 40 minutes from start to finish to get the most value, we also recognize that you’re busy.
And if you’re short on time and don’t know where to start, then start watching at minute 25:00 so you can see us demo automation tools and workflows. This will give you a lot of ideas and how it can work for you.
Enjoy!
[3:50] How do you get started with automation? What do you automate?
[10:42] How do you find the right automation and productivity tools that work for you
[12:39] What to do when you install a tool and stopped using it
[16:55] All the possibilities of what automation tools can do for you
[20:30] What Thanh automates and uses with his executive assistant when he is traveling
[24:21] Question: Is there Hazel for Windows?
This is where the demo starts:
[25:20] How to type faster without typing faster
[28:40] How Brooks has saved 106 hours with a typing tool (incl screenshot)
[31:08] An example of an automated email template to save time
[32:00] How to name your files and organize them in an automated way
[33:35] How to save time with email rules
[35:50] How to find files quickly on your computer with only a few keystrokes
End of the demo – now it’s Q&A time
[37:47] Question: Could you please show an example of Alfred’s ability to copy multiple items to Alfred’s clipboard and paste sequentially?
[45:22] Question: In the Dojo, I read that you can rename files whereby the filename is based on information in the file e.g. date, company name, invoice.
[48:25] Question: What is the main difference between Alfred and spotlight search?
[49:24] Question: Regarding email rules: Have you built any rules for following up with action items that you may have delegated to someone else?
[51:10] Question: What apps do you recommend on iOS for OCR scanning?
[52:00] Question: What’s one thing you cannot live without?
[58:20] Question: How do you find the time to learn and set up automation workflows?
[1:01:50] Question: Does Thanh have any process for tracking anything delegated or that needs follow up?
[1:04:50] Question: How do you automate OmniFocus?
[1:07:10] Question: What are some ways you can automate things with your spouse?
[1:08:30] Question: What do you do about team members who are tech-phobic and any tips for getting them to use the tech tools in your company?
[1:11:22] Question: What’s the best way to connect multiple systems like Siri, Amazon Echo, Phillips Hue, etc so they all work together?
[1:13:40] Question: What is the best Windows alternative to OmniFocus?