Why "Manual First" Can Sometimes Be a Trap
Manual, repetitive, low-leverage tasks are a trap keeping you away from what’s really important - growing your business. I spent months manually formatting blog posts, researching trends trying to make the correct move, scrolling Reddit for "inspiration" (read: procrastination), and a lot more. The regret here isn't just about lost time, it's about the opportunity cost. Every hour I spent doing something a script could do was an hour I wasn't spending on product or strategy.
Regret #1: Writing Every Blog Draft From Scratch
The Mistake: Staring at a Blank Cursor
For the longest time, I would sit down, conduct keyword research, analyse existing competitor content, stare at a blinking cursor, and try to conjure brilliance from thin air. The result? Writer's block and a publishing schedule that looked like a ghost town. I was burning precious creative energy on the structure - the headers, the SEO formatting, the basic outline - before I even wrote a word of value.
The Solution: The Blog Draft Generator Workflow
I finally snapped and built a workflow that takes a keyword and spins up a structured draft. It’s not about letting AI write the whole thing and hitting publish (that’s how you get generic garbage). It’s about getting to 80% instantly.
- Input: A topic (e.g. "Automation regrets")
- Process: AI researches competitive keywords, compares the top ranking articles, extracts key themes, builds an outline, confirms with me, and drafts the intro and headers.
- Output: A formatted markdown file ready for my unique insights.
💡 Key Takeaway: AI is for drafting, humans are for polishing. Since I automated the "blank page" phase, I’ve tripled my output without lowering my quality standards.
Regret #2: Guessing What Topics Will Go Viral
The Mistake: Trusting My "Gut"
I used to write about whatever I thought was interesting. I’d spend two days writing a deep dive on a technical nuance, only to hear crickets when I hit publish. My "gut feeling" was consistently wrong about what people actually wanted to read. I was effectively shouting into the void, hoping someone would care.
The Solution: The Reddit Trend Analyser Workflow
Instead of guessing, I decided to let the market tell me what to write. I built a workflow that scrapes relevant subreddits (like r/SaaS and r/Entrepreneur) for high-engagement discussions.
- Input: RSS Feeds to subreddits of interests (does not need to Reddit specifically)
- Process: The automation watches for newly submitted posts while AI summarizes the core pains and questions people are asking
- Output: Every morning, I get a easy-to-digest report of "Burning Topics”
Now, I don't "come up" with ideas. I just look at my report and see that 500 people are arguing about outcome-based pricing, problems they are facing, questions than are being asked and I write about that.
💡 Key Takeaway: You are not your audience, you listen to them. Data beats intuition every single time.
Regret #3: Posting Once and Moving On
The Mistake: The "One and Done" Syndrome
This is arguably my biggest regret. I would pour my soul into a blog post, share it once on Twitter, and then move on to the next thing. I treated my content like disposable intuitive razors instead of assets. I was leaving 80% of the potential traffic on the table because I was too lazy to repackage my work.
The Solution: The X Thread Content Repurposer Workflow
I realized that distribution is 80% of the battle. Now, the moment a blog post goes live, an automation kicks in.
- Input: Published blog
- Process: A Grok project will read the blog post content, extract the 5 most punchy "nuggets" or takeaways, and draft a Twitter (X) thread using a hook-focused template
- Output: A CSV for Publr to schedule posts to X
I still review it, tweak the tone, and add a meme or two, but the heavy lifting is done. A single 1,500-word essay now becomes a thread, three LinkedIn posts, and a newsletter snippet or whatever else you want, all automatically drafted.
💡 Key Takeaway: If you spend 10 hours writing and 10 minutes promoting, you’re doing it wrong. Build once, sell twice (or ten times).
Final Thoughts
Looking back, my biggest regret wasn't that I failed, it was that I waited so long to give myself permission to automate or enhance my failed automations. I thought that doing it manually proved my dedication. It didn't. It just proved I was stubborn and inefficient.
You don't need to be a coding wizard or have a massive budget to implement these workflows. Start with one - maybe the Blog Draft Generator - and feel the difference it makes in your week. The goal isn't to remove yourself from the picture, it's to free yourself up to do the work that actually matters.
Don’t let this year be another year of "manual grind" regrets. Pick a workflow, build it this weekend, and thank your past self later.