Today I’m going to share two tips that have been really useful for my wellbeing and productivity.

Scripting Repetitive tasks

The key is not to do it too often, but also don’t get used doing mundane tasks so that you never automate.

What works for me is that once I need to do a process that I’ve already done, a second time I pause and ask myself if I should automate it. Some times the answer is no, since it is something that I’m not likely to repeat, maybe something I do 3 or 4 times in a row and that’s it. But most of the times the answer is yes.

Use READMES

At times you will across a task that you can’t write a script for to automate. That doesn’t mean that next time you will come back to it, you need to face it as your first time. Learn to write down READMES on how to do stuff that you know won’t remember in 6 months time. Most of my projects are filled with them. From easy things like how to enable 3 wat git merge, to something more exotic like how to code-sign a specific embedded application.

If your memory is better than mine maybe you won’t need as many, but I would still argue that they are a good idea. Both for yourself since writing stuff down helps you remember it and for others since if someone else is going to help you with the project you already have some sort of documentation in place to quick start them.