Why Some Things Should Never Be Automated (Even If You Could)

Every spring I plant tomatoes in the same spot by the fence.

I know I should rotate crops. I've read about soil depletion. I have a whole system mapped out in a notebook somewhere.

But every April, I walk outside with my seedlings, look at that sunny patch by the fence, and plant them there anyway. By hand. One at a time. No system.

It's the most inefficient part of my garden. It's also the only part that consistently produces tomatoes.

I've been thinking about why.

The Automation Trap

For years I tried to systematize everything in my life. Writing routines. Business workflows. Morning rituals. If something worked once, I wanted to automate it, template it, turn it into a repeatable machine.

The promise was efficiency. Do it once, benefit forever.

But something weird happened. The more I automated, the worse some things got.

My writing output went up when I templated my process—but the writing itself got flatter. My client onboarding became seamless—but I stopped noticing the specific humans I was working with. My morning routine ran like clockwork—but I started dreading mornings.

The system was working. I wasn't.

Some Activities Need Friction

Here's what I think happened: some activities need friction.

Not all of them. Paying bills? Automate that. Scheduling meetings? Template it. Grocery shopping? Systems all the way.

But the things that matter most to me—writing, relationships, creative decisions—those seem to get worse when I remove the manual labor.

When I plant tomatoes by hand, I notice the soil. I see which seedlings look strong and which look weak. I adjust spacing based on what I'm actually looking at, not what my spreadsheet says. The inefficiency is the information.

When I automate, I stop paying attention. And attention, it turns out, is the thing that makes the work good.

A Different Question

I've started asking a different question now. Instead of "How can I systematize this?" I ask "Does this need my attention to work?"

If the answer is yes, I leave it manual. On purpose.

My writing process is messier than it was three years ago. I don't have a perfect template. I start each piece from scratch, feeling my way through. It's slower. It's also better.

My client relationships have fewer automations. I send more one-off emails. I remember more details. People notice.

My mornings have gaps again. Unscheduled minutes where I just stand in the kitchen and think. Those minutes produce more ideas than my optimized routine ever did.

I'm not anti-system. I still use systems for the things that don't need my soul. But I've stopped trying to automate the parts of my life that run on attention.

Some things need to stay manual.

Not because you can't systematize them. Because systematizing them removes the thing that makes them work.

Try This Today

What are you automating that might need your hands back on it?

The inefficiency might be the point.