Not Everything Should Be Automated
In a time when AI is swallowing tasks at lightning speed, the biggest risk isn’t falling behind, it’s automating the wrong things. What we choose to automate says a lot about what we value. That’s why I created the CRAFTED framework: to help you deconstruct your job and determine which tasks should be delegated to machines, and which are too human to outsource. Because if everything is a product, then your time and attention are your most important features.
🏗 Frameworks for Everything 🏗
Takeaway: The future of your job isn’t a binary choice between human or machine, it’s about designing your work like a product, identifying which tasks are worth automating and which are worth protecting.
Last year, I noticed a pattern in nearly every team I spoke with: everyone was using AI, but no one was talking about it. Whether through silent experimentation or whispered side-projects, automation had crept into the workflows of knowledge workers across the board.
Some companies encouraged it, even sharing best practices in open forums. Others tried to ignore it, as if pretending it didn’t exist might slow its advance. But for most employees—especially in a season marked by layoffs and economic tension, AI sparked anxiety more than excitement.
That tension is what drove me to build the CRAFTED framework.
Back when I gave a TEDx Talk on automation and growth mindsets, I knew we needed better tools to help navigate this shift. Not just hype or fear—but practical guidance. So I created a structure for assessing which parts of our jobs are ripe for automation, which ones benefit from augmentation, and which remain distinctly human.
Because in this age of intelligent tools, the question isn’t if AI will reshape your work, it’s where should it?
Enter: CRAFTED.
CRAFTED stands for Context, Risk, Automation Resistance, Familiarity, Tools, Empathy, and Depth. It’s a framework designed to break your job into component tasks, then evaluate each one across these seven dimensions. The goal is not to hand over your role to a machine, but to see your job like a product: a bundle of features with varying value, cost, and scalability.
What emerges is a spectrum, from machine-ready chores to human-defining responsibilities.
Leaders can use this to decide where to invest in AI, where to upskill employees, and where to preserve the work that sets your team apart. Individuals can use it to future-proof their careers, focusing on the skills that will remain uniquely human.
Because the real power of automation isn’t about doing more with less, it’s about doing better with intention.
🔬 Life Experiments 🔬
Takeaway: Self-awareness is a starting point, not a solution, real change requires designing systems that lower the friction between knowing what to do and actually doing it.
A few weeks ago, I had a realization that I needed to shift something in my personal life. The challenge wasn’t the insight, it was what came next.
I was chasing too many things, some of which were beginning to drain more than they gave. But even after seeing the misalignment, I struggled to course correct. And that’s the thing about behavior: self-awareness is only the first step.
In behavioral science, this is the intention-action gap. We know what we should do. But that doesn’t mean we do it.
I saw this not just in myself, but in a team I work with. Everyone agreed something needed to change, yet no one was willing or ready to lead the charge. It wasn’t laziness or ignorance. It was the very human friction between desire and action.
In these moments, change comes down to two levers: motivation and ability.
You can increase motivation by connecting to incentives or raising the cost of staying the same. Or you can reduce the barrier to action, making the new path easier, so it requires less motivation altogether. (This is how apps like Duolingo or Headspace work: they shrink the ask.)
These aren’t just theories. They’re practical tools I’ve used to create change, losing weight, building emergency savings, navigating career pivots. And they apply just as much to teams and companies as to individuals.
The truth is, change rarely comes from clarity alone. It comes from experiments, trying, failing, adjusting. That’s why this section exists. Because when we treat our lives like products, we don’t wait for perfect plans. We build, test, learn, and iterate toward better versions of ourselves.