Automation Tips That Will Supercharge Your Workflow

Automation isn’t just about saving time—it’s about freeing brain space so you can focus on the creative, strategic, or high-value parts of your work and life. Whether you’re a content creator trying to churn out videos faster, a tech tinkerer building IoT devices, or an entrepreneur looking to outsmart the competition, automation can be your secret weapon.

Over the last few years, automation has gone from clunky macros and rigid scripts to AI-driven workflows that can create, analyze, and even make decisions for you. In this post, I’ll walk you through some of the most exciting automation tips I’ve found—from AI-powered video generation to IoT home automation projects to clever hacks for content ideation and competitor analysis. These aren’t pie-in-the-sky concepts; they’re actionable, real-world automations you can put into practice today.

Let’s dive in.

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AI-Powered Content Automation

Content creation is one of the most repetitive and time-consuming tasks for creators and marketers. But with AI and workflow automation platforms like NA10 and make.com, you can take a lot of the grind out of the process.

The NA10 Reels Workflow

Imagine clicking one button and having an entire video—complete with ideas, visuals, sound design, and stitched clips—ready to go. That’s exactly what the NA10 Reels workflow does.

Here’s how it works:

1. Idea Generation: The workflow starts by generating a content idea using AI.
2. Image Creation: It sends that idea to File AI with Flux to create images.
3. Video Assembly: The images are turned into video clips.
4. Sound & Music: AI generates audio tracks to match the visuals.
5. Compilation: All clips are stitched together into a finished video.
6. Publishing: Metadata and links are pushed to a Google Sheet, and tools like BloTato can auto-post the final video to TikTok.

This end-to-end pipeline means you can go from concept to published social media content without touching editing software.

Pro Tip: Even if you don’t use NA10, the principle here is reusable. Break down your content pipeline into steps (idea → asset generation → editing → publishing) and look for tools that can handle each step automatically.

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Manus: Automated Storyboarding and Video Creation

Another mind-blowing workflow comes from Manus, which takes video automation a step further by generating not just the visuals but also the storyboard.

Here’s what it does:

• You provide a prompt (e.g., “Create a 60-second video about a dog who learns to skateboard”).
• Manus generates a full story outline.
• It then creates the scenes and renders a lifelike AI video.

Instead of spending hours scripting and storyboarding, Manus handles it for you. All you need is the seed idea—AI does the rest.

This is especially powerful if you’re running a SaaS product or content platform where fresh video is needed constantly. You can even embed these auto-generated videos directly into your app.

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Automating Content Ideas with RSS + AI

Sometimes the hardest part of content creation isn’t making the video itself—it’s coming up with ideas. That’s where automation can be a lifesaver.

Here’s a workflow using rss.app, make.com, and ChatGPT:

1. Use rss.app to create feeds of articles around your chosen topic.
2. Bundle multiple feeds into one master feed.
3. In make.com, use the RSS module to fetch article titles, URLs, and text.
4. Run the text through a parser to clean up HTML.
5. Send the text to ChatGPT to:
   • Confirm the article is about your topic.
   • Summarize the article.
   • Suggest a one-liner or hook.
6. Save everything into Airtable for easy tracking.

This pipeline ensures you always have a steady stream of validated, AI-summarized content ideas waiting for you.

Sample Airtable Record Structure:

{
  "ArticleTitle": "Snapchat's AI Selfie Feature Explained",
  "URL": "https://example.com/snapchat-ai",
  "Summary": "Snapchat introduces AI-generated selfies, allowing users to...",
  "OneLiner": "Snapchat just dropped AI-powered selfies—here’s what it means for you."
}

Instead of spending hours scrolling through feeds, you wake up to a list of ready-to-go content ideas.

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Competitor Content Monitoring with AI

This one’s a little spicy: using AI to keep tabs on your competitors’ content. Here’s how it works:

1. In make.com, scrape TikTok profiles with Apify.
2. Save results (video title, link, duration, views, likes, comments, shares) into Airtable.
3. Run the dataset through a ChatGPT Assistant to:
   • Identify themes across top-performing videos.
   • Suggest new content ideas based on those themes.
4. Store the insights back in Airtable.
5. Optionally, automate a Slack notification when the monthly report is ready.

This automation doesn’t just tell you what competitors are doing—it tells you what’s working for them and how you can adapt those strategies.

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IoT Home Automation: Smarter Living With ESP32 + Raspberry Pi

Content isn’t the only place automation shines. Let’s shift gears to the physical world: IoT home automation.

The Project Setup

This project uses:

• ESP32 microcontroller as the MQTT client.
• Raspberry Pi 3B as the MQTT broker and Node.js backend server.
• PostgreSQL database for storing sensor data.
• Socket.io for real-time updates to a web dashboard.

The ESP32 reads data from various sensors (temperature, pressure, air quality, light) and controls actuators (LEDs, servo motors). All data is published to the MQTT broker (Raspberry Pi), which distributes it to connected clients and saves it in the database.

Real-Time Dashboard

The Node.js backend serves a web app where you can:

• View real-time sensor plots.
• Toggle devices (turn LEDs on/off, move a servo motor).
• Query historical sensor data.

This means you can, for example, check your air quality sensor’s last 5 hours of readings with a single query.

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Why MQTT is Perfect for IoT

MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight publish-subscribe protocol designed for unreliable networks. Perfect for IoT because:

• Efficient with bandwidth.
• Scales easily as you add devices.
• Simple pub/sub model.

So the ESP32 publishes data to topics like home/livingroom/temperature, while the web client subscribes to that topic to display the data in real time.

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Demo Code: ESP32 MQTT Client (Arduino IDE)

Here’s a simplified snippet to show how you’d connect an ESP32 to a WiFi network and MQTT broker, then publish sensor data:

#include <WiFi.h>
#include <PubSubClient.h>

const char* ssid = "YOUR_WIFI_NAME";
const char* password = "YOUR_WIFI_PASSWORD";
const char* mqtt_server = "192.168.1.10"; // Raspberry Pi IP

WiFiClient espClient;
PubSubClient client(espClient);

void setup_wifi() {
  delay(10);
  WiFi.begin(ssid, password);
  while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
    delay(500);
  }
}

void reconnect() {
  while (!client.connected()) {
    if (client.connect("ESP32Client")) {
      client.subscribe("home/cmd");
    } else {
      delay(5000);
    }
  }
}

void setup() {
  setup_wifi();
  client.setServer(mqtt_server, 1883);
}

void loop() {
  if (!client.connected()) {
    reconnect();
  }
  client.loop();

  // Example: publish temperature data
  float temp = 23.5; // replace with sensor reading
  char msg[50];
  snprintf(msg, 50, "%.2f", temp);
  client.publish("home/livingroom/temperature", msg);

  delay(5000);
}

This snippet connects your ESP32 to WiFi, ensures MQTT connection stability, and publishes a fake temperature reading every 5 seconds. Add sensor code and you’ve got a live IoT system.

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Database + Web Dashboard

On the Raspberry Pi, a Node.js server handles incoming MQTT messages, saves them into PostgreSQL, and updates the web dashboard with socket.io. That means the browser updates in real time without refreshing.

This setup doesn’t just automate control of devices—it automates data collection, storage, and visualization, giving you a complete smart home stack.

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Putting It All Together: Automation as a Lifestyle

What ties these very different examples (content automation, competitor monitoring, IoT home automation) together is a mindset: automate repetitive steps, and let humans focus where creativity and judgment are needed.

• For content creators: automate ideation, video generation, and publishing.
• For entrepreneurs: automate competitor analysis and content strategy.
• For technologists: automate sensor data collection, device control, and visualization.

Automation is no longer about saving a few minutes—it’s about scaling yourself.

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Conclusion

Whether you’re building a smart home with ESP32 and Raspberry Pi, generating a month’s worth of content ideas overnight, or auto-producing videos with AI, automation is becoming a superpower. The more you can offload repetitive work to machines, the more time you free up for creativity, strategy, and growth.

My challenge to you: pick one area of your work or life where you feel bogged down by repetition, and build a small automation around it. Once you see the results, you’ll be hooked.

If you enjoyed this deep dive, consider subscribing to my newsletter—I share fresh automation tips and real-world workflows every week.

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