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I adore a good automation.
Set it and forget it. Save time. Feel clever. Watch the digital magic happen. It’s one of the few things in modern work that gives you that sweet, fleeting hit of dopamine and lets you check a box without lifting a finger later.
Until something breaks.
Quietly. Invisibly. For weeks.
That’s when the vibe shifts. Suddenly, a donor didn’t get a thank-you. A landing page link didn’t fire. A welcome email never went out. Or worse—an entire workflow misfired at 3 a.m., emailing the wrong people with the wrong message and prompting half your list to unsubscribe before you even roll out of bed.
And now I’m in full existential crisis mode—wondering if I built a machine or a monster.
That’s the real danger of automation: when they work, you feel like a genius. When they fail, they fail silently. And they never leave a note.
You don’t realize you’re being gaslit by your own tech stack until you find yourself pacing around whispering, “I know I set that up right” like it’s some kind of prayer. You deep-dive through three different platforms, API logs, and a rabbit hole of conditional logic just to prove to yourself that you’re not losing your mind.
And sometimes, you still can’t figure out what went wrong.
It’s not always dramatic. Sometimes, the failure is subtle:
- An email that never sends because someone unchecked a trigger box.
- A donation form that didn’t track source codes properly.
- A “smart” list that stopped updating because a field was renamed behind the scenes.
You don’t catch it for days—or weeks—because you trusted the system.
That’s the problem.
And yet, despite all this, I can’t quit automations. Because when they work, they give you space. They make you feel like you’ve created something that respects your time. And that’s powerful.
But here’s the shift I had to make:
Automations don’t mean abdication.
We are not excused from oversight just because we built a thing to handle the task.
What I’ve learned—painfully, repeatedly—is that good automation requires stewardship. The “set it and forget it” mindset is a myth. At best, it’s a temporary pause. At worst, it’s an invitation for disaster.
So now, I treat my automations like bonsai trees: they’re beautiful, efficient, compact—but they need trimming, attention, and care. I’ve built habits around:
- Monthly system reviews
- Test emails and sandbox checks
- Tracking unsubscribes and unusual spikes
- Manual backups for key moments (especially anything donor-facing)
I also keep a running list of what’s automated, where it lives, and what could go wrong. This doesn’t mean I don’t trust my systems—it means I trust myself to remain in relationship with them.
Because the point of automating isn’t to disengage. It’s to create space.
And space needs tending, too.
We don’t build systems so we can disappear—we build them so we can breathe. So we can focus on what matters: human connection, clear messaging, bold strategy. But if we let our systems run wild without oversight, they become the very thing we were trying to escape.
So yes. I still love automations.
But I no longer romanticize them.
I respect them. I audit them. I ask them to earn their place.
And occasionally, I say a little prayer over the Zapier dashboard.
Just in case.