Automating simple, repetitive tasks effectively across the web
Jonathan Levi
Lesson Info
23. Automating simple, repetitive tasks effectively across the web
Lessons
Class Introduction: Structure & how to succeed
03:57 2Why do things quicker
05:14 3Where most people spend (or waste) their time
04:48 4Quiz: Chapter 1
5The power of preparation
03:11 6Having clear priorities & goals - and making them "SMART"
07:38Organizing priorities with the Priority Star Exercise
09:19 8Setting deadlines & and making them real
04:18 9The Pareto Principle - our secret to being effective
03:57 10The "Bad" kind of multitasking, avoiding distractions, and meditation
07:43 11Batching similar tasks
03:48 12The "Good" kind of multitasking & the wheel of life
04:26 13Planning for structured rest periods
05:57 14Using small chunks of wasted time effectively
04:16 15Quiz - Chapter 2
16Just how much time are you wasting on your computer?
06:44 17Automating meeting scheduling
04:56 18Text expansion - stop typing the same things over and over
04:24 19Speaking is faster than typing - and clicking
05:33 20Using custom gestures to speed up common tasks
03:43 21Launchers - act without doing
06:02 22Wasting less time reading and sorting through email
03:41 23Automating simple, repetitive tasks effectively across the web
05:03 24Watching lectures, videos, and podcasts faster
04:48 25Quiz: Chapter 3
26Getting fit in fewer hours
04:10 27Spend less time cooking
04:02 28Sleeping less and feeling better
06:00 29Quiz - Chapter 4
30Monitoring your finances automatically
04:30 31Paying bills automatically
05:29 32Quiz - Chapter 5
33Some things just aren_t worth your time
11:21 34Thoughts & tips on "outsourcing"
06:18 35Speeding up decisions
09:14 36Speeding up communication
05:12 37Splitting Time Into “Maker” and “Manager” Days
05:06 38Quiz - Chapter 6
39What we've learned, conclusion, and congratulations
02:51 40Final Quiz
Lesson Info
Automating simple, repetitive tasks effectively across the web
we know how to use keyboard shortcuts and gestures, we know how to act without doing but now it's time to learn how to make the internet work for us so much of the work we do every day is something that requires little creative or analytical thinking. So much of it is based on patterns and rules, making it highly repetitive and as you know anything that's repetitive is an opportunity for automation. Enter two different Softwares, IFTTT or Ift for beginners and zap ear for more advanced users. These services connect just about every internet service that you can possibly think of to just about every other and allow you to build pretty complex and sophisticated logic into it. The possibilities are literally limitless. The only real limit is how creative you can get if you're just starting out with automation or don't want to pay a monthly fee. Then if it is a great place to start it will allow you to connect to some basic services such as Spotify, Alexa, facebook, Evernote, email, google...
drive, IOS, photos linkedin slack and many more. Then you can create a basic if this then that recipe for example if my profile photo changes on facebook updated on twitter. If I get tagged in a new photo in facebook, save it to my IOS photos and so on. While it is much more basic than Xavier it is completely free and it does surprisingly have some integrations which actually aren't available on the more advanced and commercially applicable Xabier. So it's actually worth signing up for both in my business. We used it for a few different important functions but we rely on zap here for just about everything. It keeps accurate records of our customers based on purchases. It notifies our slack channel of messages across different platforms, sales refunds, social media messages and more. We use appear to automatically create documents on a schedule set reminders for staff members and organized files. In fact Xavier Performs almost 15,000 menial tasks and checks for us every single month. But superior isn't only good for businesses. In fact Zapater can actually help you control everything in your digital life and beyond here are just a few ideas that I've developed over the years for leveraging the power of things like zap ear and left. You can use them to notify you when new episodes of your favorite tv shows come out and automatically send you the link to watch them on the network's website. You can use appear to change the lights in your house to read when there's an amber alert or an earthquake warning. You can use apps like this to automatically reply to a specific type of email if it has a certain string of words and then remove it from your inbox. So you don't even have to see it. You can use it to automatically download receipts from your email inbox and upload them to your google drive or better yet you can get really ninja with it and you can probably insert those transactions into your accounting software and automatically notify your accountant when they are input. You can even use it to automatically log every one of your workouts every time you go to the gym on a spreadsheet and then share the results with your accountability partner on your favorite chat app all automatically. Or how about using it to automatically add all of your replies on facebook, twitter and instagram to a spreadsheet and emailing that spreadsheet to you every day so that you don't get sucked into the distracting apps themselves. It's just an idea I've been playing around with. The possibilities are like I said literally endless. The hardest part of using an app like zap here or if it is coming up with creative recipes for that, you'll need to think long and hard about the things you repeatedly do. Once you determine those things, it's very, very easy to automate them with these appears easy interface and you can even do condition als and multi steps and different decision trees to get really complex. So while this is going to sound crazy, your homework for this lecture is not just to open a zap your account but also to spend a good couple of hours looking at all the apps and integration they have and building some of your very own At the very least you should build some to help take over some of the basic repetitive tasks but at best you'll be like my previous, become a speed demon student, Jeremy, who was able to automate over 50% of his day job using zap here and cut his workday down to just four hours before leaving to start his own business. Zap here will literally change your life, so give it some time and thought.