World Model Readiness
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Personal Practice

Module · What you have automated, honestly

The Personal Automation Check

It is easy to talk about automation and hard to point at the things that actually run without you. A real portfolio saves you measurable time, stays cheap to maintain, and fails loudly enough that you notice. This module checks the five habits that separate genuine leverage from expensive tinkering: knowing what runs, measuring the payoff, keeping the upkeep low, catching silent failures, and feeding a pipeline of what to automate next.

Question 1 of 5 · You know what runs

Can you list the tasks you have actually automated?

Talking about automation is easy; naming the scripts, workflows, and agents that run without you is the real inventory. If you cannot list them, you probably have fewer than you think.

Question 2 of 5 · You measure the payoff

Do you know how much time your automations actually save?

An automation that saves two minutes a month cost more to build than it will ever return. Knowing the real saving is what separates useful automation from expensive fidgeting.

Question 3 of 5 · Upkeep is manageable

How much time do your automations cost you to keep working?

Every automation is a small liability that breaks when something upstream changes. A portfolio that eats your week in maintenance is a second job, not a saving.

Question 4 of 5 · Failures are caught

When an automation fails silently, would you know?

The dangerous automation is the one that stops working without telling you, while you keep trusting its output. Failure that surfaces loudly is far safer than failure that hides.

Question 5 of 5 · You spot the next one

Do you notice repetitive work worth automating next?

A living portfolio grows because you keep spotting the manual, repetitive tasks worth removing. When you stop noticing candidates, the portfolio quietly ages into irrelevance.

For the statistics · one click each

Three questions for the public picture

These do not affect your score. They feed the anonymised, aggregated statistics; groups under 8 respondents are never shown.

How many tasks have you actually automated for yourself?

None
One or two
3 to 5
6 to 10
More than 10

Do you know how much time your automations save you?

Nothing automated
Only a guess
A rough estimate
Tracked properly
Not sure

How much of your automation time goes to maintenance versus building new things?

Almost all upkeep
Mostly upkeep
A rough balance
Mostly building
Nothing automated

Your context

Used to calibrate the report. Company size and sector remain in the anonymized dataset; your email does not.

What the five levels look like

Every dimension in this assessment is scored 1 to 5. This is what the levels mean, dimension by dimension. The graded report diagnoses where your own answers land and what to do about it.

You know what runs

  1. 1Nothing automated
  2. 2Talk, no action
  3. 3One or two
  4. 4A handful running
  5. 5A real portfolio

At the low end: If nothing runs without you, automation is still an aspiration, not a practice. Pick one repetitive task this week and automate it end to end, however small. What good looks like: A portfolio you can actually list is real leverage that compounds. Keep the inventory written down; automations you have forgotten about are the ones that break silently.

You measure the payoff

  1. 1No idea
  2. 2Assume it helps
  3. 3Rough guess
  4. 4Roughly measured
  5. 5Tracked per task

At the low end: Without a sense of the payoff, you cannot tell your leverage from your hobby. Estimate, even roughly, how much time each automation saves against what it cost to build. What good looks like: Tracking the payoff per task is what lets you invest your automation time where it returns most. Keep it honest; the automation you are proudest of is not always the one that pays.

Upkeep is manageable

  1. 1Constant firefighting
  2. 2Frequent breakage
  3. 3Occasional fixes
  4. 4Low upkeep
  5. 5Near-zero maintenance

At the low end: If keeping your automations alive is constant firefighting, they are costing more than they save. Retire the fragile ones and rebuild only the few that clearly earn their keep. What good looks like: Near-zero maintenance is what makes a portfolio genuine leverage rather than a chore. Watch the upkeep trend as you add more; maintenance load creeps up quietly with every new automation.

Failures are caught

  1. 1Fails silently
  2. 2Find out late
  3. 3Notice eventually
  4. 4Alerts on failure
  5. 5Monitored and alerted

At the low end: A silent failure you keep trusting is worse than no automation at all. Add even a basic alert so a broken run tells you, rather than you finding out from the damage. What good looks like: Monitored automations with real alerts are what let you actually rely on them. Test the alerts occasionally; a failure notification that never fires is its own silent failure.

You spot the next one

  1. 1Never look
  2. 2Rarely notice
  3. 3Spot sometimes
  4. 4Keep a list
  5. 5Steady pipeline

At the low end: If you never look for the next candidate, your automation stops the day you built the last one. Start noticing the tasks you do by hand more than a few times a week. What good looks like: A steady pipeline of candidates is what keeps your leverage growing over time. Prioritise it by payoff from your own measurements, not by which one looks the most fun to build.