I've been building a content system recently.
Not because I want to automate social media.
Mostly because I wanted to stop spending time on work that doesn't need me.
Along the way, I found myself using a simple test before deciding to automate a task.
Does this require judgment, taste, or a person?
If the answer is yes, the work stays with me or whoever's responsible for it.
If it's remembering, fetching, formatting, routing, or tracking information, there's a good chance it can be automated.
For example, my system can:
- Check for duplicate topics
- Rotate content formats
- Draft captions
- Create creative briefs
- Track post status
- Alert me when something breaks
Those tasks are important.
But they don't require much judgment.
They're process.
The things I don't want to automate are different.
Deciding whether an idea is worth pursuing.
Designing the actual creative.
Responding to a customer.
Those are the parts where human context matters.
Yes, AI can help with a decision, we just need to define what good is.
But the interesting thing for me is that automation hasn't really changed how much human work is involved.
It's changed where the human work happens.
Instead of spending time moving and getting information around, I spend more time deciding what deserves my attention.
That's a trade I'm happy to make.
The goal isn't to automate everything.
It's to automate the parts that don't benefit from being human.