You’ve probably seen Rube Goldberg machines — those ridiculous setups where a marble rolls down a track, flips a switch, lights a match, and somehow makes toast. They’re fun to watch… but terrible for actually getting anything done.

That’s how most automations feel when you’re first starting out: over-engineered, fragile, and hard to maintain. But real business-saving automations? They don’t need to be complicated. In fact, some of the ones that save me the most time are stupidly simple.

In this episode, I walk through three automations I actually use — starting with a single-app setup inside Notion, moving to a form-to-database connection, and ending with a wild (but wonderful) workflow that ties together a whole bunch of tools. And yes, that last one does feel like a Rube Goldberg machine… but it works beautifully.

If you want to see how these work or grab templates, head to casabona.org/automation.

Top Takeaways

• Start with simple, single-app automations. You’ll reduce points of failure and make it easier to trust your systems.
• The best automations evolve. I’ve been tweaking some of mine for years.
• Don’t build for complexity. Build for clarity, reliability, and ease.

Show Notes

• Watch on YouTube
• My Automations Database
• Zapier
• Make
• Notion
• Tella
• Hazel

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