A Tech Version of the Chicken or the Egg
On a recently re-aired episode of Akimbo (which also happens to feature yours truly on the recorded introduction), Seth Godin answered the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Godin spends about 9 minutes explaining the process of evolutionary change, using several other animals as examples. He then states “it turns out, that the only thing that can get born from a chicken egg is a chicken. But the thing that can lay a chicken egg is something that’s almost a chicken. Because that’s how the mutation part of evolution works…so the chicken had to come from an egg, a chicken egg. The chicken egg had to be first.” (emphasis added)
Do you get it? Maybe listen to Godin’s whole explanation before passing judgment. But I recently found myself with a sort of tech version of the chicken-or-the-egg question:
What will take more time/be more worth my time - manual data/tech work or learning something about how to automate data/tech work?
I don’t pretend to have an answer to this like Godin did, and this question could be unique to each situation within which it is asked. But I can share my experience asking it recently and working through the answer in my particular situation. I’m not surprised to say that what it left me with was more questions.
Here is how the Loom AI summarized the video I made exploring this topic (embedded below):
Hey, it's Emily from Make Tech Work for you! In this video, I share my struggle with manually deleting outdated list views in Salesforce and my quest to find a way to automate the process. I explore different options, including using Workbench, and document my findings. If you've ever wondered how much time it takes to automate a task versus doing it manually, this video is for you. Join me as I navigate through the challenges and seek solutions.
I thought that was pretty darn good. They got the agenda as well:
0:00 Introduction
0:32 The Challenge with List Views
1:21 Exploring Solutions with Workbench
2:41 Getting the List View IDs
4:02 Trying to Delete a List View
5:46 Hitting a Wall
As you can see, I “hit a wall” at the end and have no chicken-or-egg answer for you. But I would like to know:
Does anyone know how I can mass delete listviews?
What are the situations in which you've had to ask yourself how much time you should spend to do something manually versus learning something or working on an automated process?
If you choose to invest time learning something or working on automating a process, and you end up having to do it manually anyway, did that time feel worthwhile to you?
