You don't even know what you're automating - Automation Tip #1

standardized before automating now this is going to be a video series where i'm going to be sharing some really basic but really really powerful automation tips that you can implement in your ai workflows and agents and they're going to make them a heck of a lot more reliable so to kick things off the first tip i want to talk about is to standardize the task before you try to automate it all right this is really simple just all you have to do is just have written instructions and SOPs. SOPs just means standard operating procedures for the task that you're trying to automate. Because the thing is, if you don't know, like if you can't figure out the entire process, then you won't be able to automate it. And if you can't do it manually first, you absolutely will not be able to automate it. So the very first thing you do before you try to automate any task at all, doesn't matter what it is, is you flesh out the entire process with like a diagram or some flow chart or something or whatever it is and figure out exactly what steps need to be executed to perform this whole automation smoothly and reliably Have some sort of like instruction list for the entire automation in writing. Don't just have it in your head because you're going to forget about it and it's going to be vague. So have it in writing and then proceed to trying to automate this task. And another even more important tip, always do the task manually at least once or twice so you understand the entire process completely and deeply before you try to automate the entire thing. If you can't do it manually, you are not going to be able to do it automatically, all right? You're going to run into a lot of issues. So just do it manually first and then try to automate it. Now, let me show you some examples so you understand this whole thing even better. So we're back in my automated video editor code base over here. And let me just explain to you how I actually automated this whole thing, right? I was already doing all of these tasks manually, right? I was doing the audio processing the noise reduction everything in Audacity I had Filmora as my video editor and I was using that to do all the other stuff I need to do like cut out the bad takes trim out the silent bits etc etc I was already doing all of these things manually by hand for dozens of videos So I already had a very deep understanding of every single thing that goes into this whole video processing and editing pipeline. I already knew exactly what to do. And so when it came to automate things, it was easy for me. like I knew exactly what needed to be done and I was able to just automate every single tiny task in the entire pipeline until the entire pipeline was completely automated and now I don't edit videos at all like it all happens automatically but it didn't start out this way I just took it one step at a time right like the very first thing I did was automate the entire audio processing with a bunch of shell scripts over here and then I just kept adding to that right as soon as I figured out what next task I could automate with this. I just kept adding it to this pipeline. And before you know it, the whole thing just became so useful, right? Because everything gets done automatically for me now Another example that I can show you is thumbnail creation Now there many creators out there that have completely automated the thumbnail creation of their videos and all their other content, right? And that's because they have a very clear process that they follow for every single thumbnail, and they're able to express that properly in these prompts, and they're able to generate thumbnails automatically. I can't do that yet. I have to like manually put in a ton of effort into my prompts. But that's because most of my videos have really unique thumbnails. And more importantly, I don't have a clear process for generating these right now. So I can't do this. And it just goes to show you, right? Unless you have a clear process, unless you know exactly what you're doing, you're going to have a lot of trouble automating things. So always, before you try to automate the task, standardize it, figure out the entire process flesh it out and once you understand it fully and to understand it fully do it manually once or twice at least so that you can clearly see all of the steps involved and then try to automate it