The hardest part of automation isn't building it. It's knowing what not to automate.

I've been building more automation into my digital product workflow lately.

And I've noticed something I didn't expect.

The more things I automated, the more things I had to maintain.

At first, every new automation felt like a win.

A new webhook here.
Another notification there.
Another database field.
Another integration.

Everything was supposed to save time.

But after a while, I had to remember:

Which workflow triggers this?
What happens if this step fails?
Where is this data stored?
What happens if the same event happens twice?

That's when I realized something.

The hardest part of automation isn't building it.

It's knowing what NOT to automate.

Now I try to use a much simpler rule:

If a task is repetitive and predictable, automate it.

If automating it creates another thing I have to constantly monitor, I think twice.

This has made my workflows much smaller.

And honestly, much easier to maintain.

I'm still figuring this out as I build, but I'm starting to believe that a good automation system isn't the one with the most integrations.

It's the one that removes the most repetitive work with the least maintenance.

Curious how other indie hackers approach this.

Do you automate everything you can, or do you deliberately keep some things manual?