We’re often told about the benefits of automating our repetitive tasks.
If you have mental health challenges, automation can be an assistive technology. For example, it can:
- help you still perform on days your mental health is poor
- streamline tasks you might overthink
- help with executive functioning challenges, like organization and forgetting
- reduce friction to make it easier to stick to positive habits.
Let AI Create Solutions for You
If you have pain points in your workflow, don’t just accept them. Modern AI, like ChatGPT or Claude, can do most of the work to create custom solutions for you. You’ll mainly act as its gofer, copying and pasting the code where it needs to go.
People often struggle to see how automation could apply to their workflow. To illustrate, I’ve put together five simple but useful examples. You don’t need to understand every detail of my descriptions—for any that interest you, copy and paste my brief description into an AI tool, and ask it to create your own version. All of these can be created and used for free, and tailored exactly to your needs.
Five Sample Automations
1. Log Interesting Articles I Read
I use a bookmarklet that, when pressed, adds the URL of the webpage I’m reading to a Google Sheet.
Technical part: The bookmarklet sits in my Chrome bookmarks bar and consists of just a few lines of code. The real work happens in a Google Apps Script deployed as a web app. When the bookmarklet is clicked, it sends data to the web app, which then adds the URL to my spreadsheet.
Google Apps Scripts automate tasks in Google apps, like Docs, Sheets, or Gmail. A Web App is a version that interacts with external data (e.g., received from the bookmarklet) and runs in the background. They’re the tools I use most for automation, are free, and excellent for beginners.
2. Track My Web Browsing (for Time Analysis)
In 10 minutes, Claude wrote a Chrome extension to track my browsing and walked me through implementing it. It tracks the URLs I visit and time spent on each page. Based on categories I created, it classifies different activities, creates automated daily and weekly reports, and analyzes specific sessions of work, e.g., a two-hour writing session.
Technical part: Claude wrote two files (one JSON, one JavaScript), which I saved in a folder on my computer. Deploying the extension involved enabling development mode in Chrome and uploading the folder. Claude provided step-by-step instructions, one step at a time. A Google Apps Script, deployed as a web app, collects this data and logs it in a Google Sheet.
I have other Google Apps Scripts that automatically generate daily and weekly analyses. I also have a separate function to analyze specific work sessions, in another sheet within my main spreadsheet. When I want to perform this analysis, I input the start and finishing row numbers in a set field, which tells the script where the specific data for that session is located.
3. Have Google Home Announce the Forecast Wind Speed for My Typical Run Time the Next Day
This is much simpler and relates to self-care rather than work. I go running most days and prefer to run outdoors unless it’s too windy. At 7 p.m., my Google Home announces the wind forecast for my typical run time, helping me decide whether to run outside or at the gym.
4. Capture Ideas on the Go
Ideas usually come to us when we’re unfocused. We think we’ll remember them, but we often don’t. The more ways you capture ideas, the better. This applies to everyone, but especially to people who are neurodiverse or who have mental health challenges, such as if your mind becomes cluttered with anxious thoughts.
One way I capture my ideas is by using the voice recorder app on my phone and then processing them into a spreadsheet.
Technical part: There are many ways to do this depending on your preferred tools. I use a Pixel phone, and my method suits my tools. Ask your AI bot of choice to suggest methods based on tools you already use.
I dictate notes using my default phone app, which automatically creates transcripts. Twice a week, I upload these text transcripts to a Google Drive folder. This takes about 15 seconds. Whenever new items are added, an Apps Script scoops them up and puts the content into a spreadsheet. Because the transcripts often start out somewhat garbled, I use an AI API (with a free tier) to clean them up into full sentences.
5. Log Emails I Write to Myself to Capture Ideas
To capture all your best ideas, it’s helpful to have multiple ways to do so. Sometimes I dictate a note, other times I write ideas on paper and take a photo, or I’ll email myself. I use Gmail, and I identify idea emails with a short word in the subject line. A script then adds the date/time and content to a Google Sheet.
Technical details: A Google Apps Script logs any emails I write to myself that have a specific subject line and transfers the content into a spreadsheet.
Good Safety Practices When Creating Automations With AI
To ensure no nefarious code given to you by one AI tool (like ChatGPT or Claude) makes it into another, ask the second AI tool to explain what the code does and any security concerns. You can ask a bot, “Explain this code like I’m 10, no more than 8 lines at a time.”
Why Automation Tools Largely Haven’t Been Useful Until Now
In the past, a barrier to benefiting from automation was that packaged solutions, like existing time trackers or second brain services, didn’t precisely meet individual needs. However, AI is now so good at writing simple code that anyone can create personalized software that’s completely customizable in minutes. Anyone with basic computer literacy can do it.
