An unique interview with Aytekin Tank, one in all The Startup’s most-read writers
In at the moment’s fast-paced digital world, the hunt to do extra with much less has by no means been extra pertinent. As we frequently grapple with overflowing inboxes, limitless to-do lists, and perpetual deadlines, the power to streamline duties and maximize effectivity isn’t just a comfort, however a necessity.
Meet Aytekin Tank, a visionary who not solely understood this necessity early on, however has devoted his profession to creating it a actuality. Because the founder and CEO of Jotform, a web based kind builder with over 20 million customers worldwide and a sturdy group of 619 workers, Aytekin has remodeled the way in which we method mundane duties, releasing up numerous hours for extra significant pursuits.
However Aytekin’s journey is about extra than simply software program. Tank can also be an achieved writer, whose latest e book, “Automate Your Busywork: Do Much less, Obtain Extra, and Save Your Mind for the Huge Stuff” seeks to additional demystify the secrets and techniques of productiveness in a world marked by distraction and knowledge overload.
A developer at his core, he has woven his technical experience into compelling narratives that encourage readers worldwide. His common contributions to prestigious publications like Quick Firm, Entrepreneur, and TechCrunch supply insights which are as enlightening as they’re sensible, portray an image of a person who not solely talks the discuss however walks the stroll.
We had the distinctive privilege of sitting down with Aytekin to delve deeper into his journey, his insights, and his imaginative and prescient for a future the place busywork is a factor of the previous.
Be a part of us as we uncover the person behind the automation revolution, and discover the boundless potential of doing much less to realize extra.
It’s a life raft for everybody who’s so busy and frantic that they will’t get their actual work accomplished — no matter that could be.
So many people really feel like we’re simply treading water. We’ve extra to present — to our careers and the world however we’re all drowning in busywork.
They are saying a drowning man will clutch at a straw.
Again in 2008, I used to be drowning. I used to be inundated with busywork and couldn’t get my head above water.
I had just lately launched my firm, Jotform. In these days, we had been a three-person group. Nonetheless, I had a hand in all the things, from design and enterprise improvement to advertising and trouble-shooting. It was an early stage that I’m positive sounds acquainted to many entrepreneurs, particularly bootstrappers.
Stomping out fires all day lengthy, I couldn’t give attention to my core duties like hiring and enterprise improvement. I wasn’t having fun with the day-to-day work.
My to-do listing solely appeared to develop, and but, I felt like I used to be by no means getting sufficient accomplished. On high of all of it, large opponents like Google had been tossing their hats into the net varieties ring. The long run regarded busier and busier. Burnout was on the horizon. I began to concern that the issue was me: that I wasn’t lower out for the startup life.
Right here’s the straw I want somebody would have handed me:
You aren’t the issue. Your busywork is. And so is the concept that YOU must do all the things.
There’s a lot to do, a lot to absorb today. Emails, invoices, expense studies, social media, and limitless to-do lists.
We’ve by no means had extra content material, extra methods to speak. Our brains are overwhelmed.
It’s nearly unimaginable to clear your thoughts and your schedule so you possibly can give attention to the work that issues to you.
Then once you get pulled beneath by all these repetitive duties, you blame your self. You learn extra articles about overcoming procrastination. You strive extra time-saving hacks.
Possibly you unencumber an additional 10 minutes, however your to-do listing simply expands to fill all of that point.
You’re feeling dangerous about your self, and also you assume you’re failing.
However right here’s the largest realization: the world, and at the moment’s work surroundings, has set you as much as fail:
It’s not your fault. You aren’t the issue.
For a second, think about 200 years in the past, when most individuals lived and labored on farms.
The ultimate frost of winter begins to thaw. The farmer consults climate maps, thinks about final yr’s harvest, and will get to work. There’s no deliberating or procrastinating. It doesn’t matter if the farmer is burned out or depressed, they must preserve going. It’s an annual course of that the farmer has to finish — or nothing grows.
Now, examine the farmer to at the moment’s information staff. For many of us, the trail to getting issues accomplished isn’t so simple. Anybody who does information work has to deal with their very own feelings and biology.
We really feel like we have to be motivated to do nice work.
Possibly you slept badly or drank an excessive amount of with mates the evening earlier than… it’s robust to be inventive and strategic on demand.
There are such a lot of issues vying for our consideration — internally and externally. So, we flip to productiveness hacks.
We additionally write enormous to-do lists that aren’t lifelike.
Even when you didn’t must sleep, you continue to couldn’t get by way of all the duties. However each time you tick off one other merchandise, your mind feels a surge of delight.
So, you write an e-mail as a substitute of digging right into a extra significant exercise.
You’re consistently combating your individual human wiring for instant gratification and fast hits of accomplishment. On the finish of the day, you’re feeling each drained and disenchanted by what you managed to realize — it by no means seems like sufficient.
But, you begin the subsequent day on a caffeine excessive, feeling optimistic. You write one other unimaginable to-do listing, since you’re hooked on the phantasm of productiveness.
Now, we even have the specter of AI and automation threatening to take information employee’s jobs. So, individuals are much more careworn — and so they’re searching for extra productiveness hacks.
As a substitute, my e book teaches individuals harness AI and automation to finish this vicious cycle.
As Santiago Pino places it completely, AI won’t exchange you. An individual utilizing AI will.
An individual using automation to their benefit will win large time.
Automate your busywork — all of the repetitive, tedious, low-value duties that clog up your days.
Take your feelings and motivation and human biology out of the equation, so you are able to do your highest work.
Your finest work can also be the work that computer systems can’t do.
It’s the work that makes you human, not a productiveness machine.
As machines can more and more deal with our tedious work, we have to change into extra progressive. Extra human.
In Automate Your Busywork, I invite my readers to begin considering strategically, now, by searching for methods to maximise their finest, most targeted work as a substitute of, say, drowning of their inbox or manually including knowledge to a spreadsheet.
All of us have the identical period of time within the day — automation can provide the edge you have to really succeed.
It will probably show you how to maximize your potential.
It labored for me and I imagine my program will work for my readers. Over the previous 20 years of operating my firm with over 600 workers and 20 million international customers, I discovered to internalize this basic discovery: the key to eliminating busywork is automation.
Simply as my firm was automating on-line kind creation, it dawned on me that I may do the identical with my work. It comes down to selecting the correct of duties — the initiatives that genuinely encourage and gas you — and trimming away the remaining by way of automation or elimination.
At present, I make it my each day mission to be deliberate about selecting duties, with a watch towards quieting the decision to perform the million issues I might be doing and specializing in those that may transfer the needle for me and my firm. It hasn’t all the time been simple. However with time, I’ve discovered to chop the fats.
Automation empowers you to put in writing the recipes as a substitute of getting caught baking the pies.
Even earlier than the pandemic, I regarded round, and so many individuals round me had been overwhelmed and burned out.
Associates, colleagues, fellow entrepreneurs…
I knew one thing was flawed — and it wanted an actual resolution, not little ideas, like get higher at e-mail, for instance.
After I began Jotform in 2006, automation was nonetheless very area of interest. It was solely utilized by software program engineers, like me, or individuals working deep in know-how.
However Jotform helps information staff to automate their tedious duties utilizing net varieties. As the corporate grew, we stored including an increasing number of performance. Folks informed us it made a giant distinction.
Once they didn’t have to gather varieties by hand, or collect submissions and arrange them, one after the other, that they had extra time to work on their enterprise, or make their occasions profitable.
Even inside our firm, we use automation on a regular basis. It helps us in so some ways. We’ve some main opponents — Google, Typeform, and lots of others. It is a crowded market. But, our groups work in a very sane, calm means.
They’re not frantic or overwhelmed — and automation is a giant a part of that.
I knew that automation was a means to assist individuals step off the each day treadmill of their to-do lists.
I additionally knew that with a purpose to succeed, individuals would want a structured option to method automation.
Should you simply attempt to dive in and do it suddenly, you’ll get annoyed. You’ll really feel much more overwhelmed. You may even hand over. So, I formalized our casual course of.
It’s known as the Automation Flywheel — and it’s the core of the e book.
Inform me concerning the system you describe in your e book.
First off, it’s price noting that I’ve all the time cherished methods.
Even once I was a child rising up in Turkey, I favored issues which have an enter and a transparent trigger and impact output.
Individuals are messy and sophisticated. However methods are clear and predictable.
As I used to be fascinated by this e book, I spotted that automation is an ongoing course of. It’s a system you create that continues to ship outcomes. However, you additionally want a scientific option to method it.
That’s the Automation Flywheel.
It has three steps:
- Divide and conquer
- Design and implement
- Refine and iterate
After all, I describe every step intimately within the e book. However the level is that it’s a flywheel, not a matrix. As soon as it begins turning, it will get higher and higher. Every flip makes the automation extra useful.
It additionally requires a brand new mind-set, which is the automation-first mindset.
That’s the place you take a look at your to-do listing and begin to see duties you would automate, as a substitute of issues you have to do.
Your “automation eyes” get sharper and sharper. It takes a little bit of effort to get began, however the outcomes are all the time price it. You’ll be so glad you began this course of.
Understanding automation means understanding workflows.
So many gadgets on our to-do lists aren’t simply one-off duties; they’re workflows.
This was a giant revelation for me.
Take into account an e-mail. Your to-do listing states Reply to Sam — a seemingly easy job that you could knock out in a couple of minutes. However beneath that innocuous merchandise, there’s an imperceptible mass of duties — first, you want a solution from Casey who, to have the ability to reply to your e-mail, wants knowledge from the accounting division. As soon as Casey will get again to you, you have to enter his numbers right into a spreadsheet and in addition collaborate with one other colleague. And earlier than lastly replying to Sam, you keep in mind you continue to want the authorized division’s overview. All of the sudden, a pair hours of your day are gone and also you’re nowhere close to the top of your to-do listing.
As your blood stress rises increased and better, you in all probability have an epiphany: these aren’t simply emails, they’re workflows. If you wish to get your work beneath management, you need to perceive and handle your workflows.
The identical applies to your each day life. For instance, I am going to the fitness center each morning earlier than work. It’s an necessary routine for me — and it makes my complete day higher.
For years, although, I struggled to get to the fitness center. I truthfully needed to go.
Why did so many issues get in the way in which?
Someday, I spotted that prepping for the fitness center was a workflow. You don’t simply “go” to the fitness center. You need to plan, get your garments prepared, work again your schedule to get there on time, get to the workplace on time, and extra.
It’s a complete workflow.
When you perceive and kind out that workflow, you possibly can constantly slot in morning train.
An enormous a part of automating your busywork is breaking down your workflows.
Then you possibly can rebuild them to work once you’re doing one thing else.
There are such a lot of potentialities.
I present numerous examples within the e book, to get readers began — and to assist them brainstorm their very own concepts.
Most significantly: we’re at some extent the place you possibly can automate practically any repetitive, guide job. There are such a lot of free and low-cost instruments on the market. And so they’re not only for builders anymore.
What you’ll automate actually is dependent upon your work and duties. However strive to think about your busywork in buckets or teams, like:
Social media, conferences, monetary duties, and communication.
If you consider conferences, you would:
- Use AI-based speech recognition to take notes and create digital transcripts
- Routinely save and share these notes in a Google doc
- Verify assembly occasions — with out emailing backwards and forwards — and ship hyperlinks to affix video conferences
- Routinely discover and e book obtainable rooms in your constructing or campus
For communication, you would
- Auto-reply to textual content messages
- Routinely save e-mail attachments in searchable folders or doc libraries, so that you by no means lose an attachment once more
- Copy key knowledge from emails, utilizing sample recognition
- Create a parser mailbox with a customized template to extract and save particular kinds of data
- Convert emails to spreadsheets
- Use computerized checks and verifications to make sure bulk emails (like advertising emails) attain the appropriate individuals, as a substitute of getting marked as spam
These are only a few. There are SO many extra examples within the e book. And extra automations are doable on daily basis. These may sound too easy to you — or too superior. However, I promise there are automations that may work for everybody.
When you study the fundamentals, the one restrict is your creativeness. Additionally, needless to say each bit you automate provides up. Emailing backwards and forwards to set a gathering time may not look like a giant deal. While you multiply that busywork by a number of days per week, and many individuals in your calendar, it wastes a lot of your time.
Each seemingly-small job you automate provides you extra psychological house. It’s greater than saving 10 minutes right here and there. You’ll really feel extra in management and fewer overwhelmed. Extra relaxed — and extra able to doing what you actually need to do.
It’s about releasing your time AND your thoughts house.
1. Your productiveness just isn’t the issue
Doing all the things in your plate is unimaginable.
There are too some ways to speak, too many particulars to handle in trendy life. You’ll by no means discover sufficient hacks to achieve the top of your to-do listing.
Automation is your secret weapon.
Begin automating and get snug with it now. You’ll be able to transfer slowly, however now could be the time to begin transferring. You’ll discover it might probably supercharge your small business or your profession. It actually does assist to ease that feeling of frantic overwhelm.
2. Domesticate an automation-first mindset
When you begin automating, you’ll discover more and more extra duties that you simply can automate. You’ll begin seeing them in your calendar and in your to-do listing.
Develop into grasping about releasing your individual time.
Preserve pushing the boundaries of what you automate. Chances are high, somebody has created a instrument to make it doable. Or, somebody has discovered the appropriate merchandise to make this occur. A little analysis goes a great distance.
Individuals are usually joyful to share what they’ve discovered, and to show you their methods. There’s a complete group on the market of people who find themselves automating their busywork.
3. Anybody can automate
This isn’t only for techy individuals.
I needed to make certain the e book labored for anybody who works with a display screen, and has an excessive amount of to do — which might be anybody listening at the moment.
Builders, like our engineers at Jotform, have labored laborious to make automation instruments actually user-friendly. They’re designed for individuals who don’t know code. All you want is a little bit endurance and a constructive perspective.
Begin slowly and work your means up.
Use the Automation Flywheel as a information.
4. Automation modifications quick, however I educate you construct a sample for fulfillment
It’s a machine you possibly can preserve tweaking and adjusting.
There have been occasions once I needed to stroll readers, step-by-step, by way of a number of the most respected automation initiatives. However it might be old-fashioned so shortly.
Know-how evolves extremely quick. By the point the e book was printed, the steps can be completely completely different. Or, the automation can be a typical characteristic in your smartphone, not one thing that requires a particular instrument.
That’s why I’m so excited concerning the Automation Flywheel.
It’s the system you possibly can observe, no matter what you wish to automate. Study this and also you’ll have the important thing — you possibly can determine something.
I don’t have all of the solutions.
We don’t know what’s going to occur in 5, 10, 15 years.
Nobody does. If say they do, they’re not telling the reality.
No matter how you’re feeling, automation is right here, and it’s solely going to change into an even bigger a part of our work and our lives. That is your likelihood to get forward of the curve. To study what it might probably do for you, and to begin having fun with the advantages.
When machines can do our repetitive work, we have now to give attention to our human traits and talents. You give your self extra alternatives to try this work once you automate. Take management of it and study what’s doable.
I’ve been by way of lots of modifications in my profession already. Constructing and operating a enterprise all the time has ups and downs. I’ve discovered that concern isn’t the perfect response.
Dealing with issues head-on, with curiosity, has all the time served me nicely.
I might urge listeners and readers to do the identical.
Be curious, be affected person, and be ruthless about defending the work that basically issues to you.
It will probably make all of the distinction.