# I'm often surprised by how simplifying things can end up being a daunting task
2024-09-22
Several months ago, I got stuck trying to code a complicated set of rules to try to automate the process of building my [[vladcampos.com/Newsletter|newsletter]], while also making it more intuitive for readers to understand. That turned out to be a huge task because I'm not a developer, and I went back to the laborious manual process.
However, for some unknown reason, my brain refuses to let go of some projects and continues to secretly work on them. After a few days, years, or hours, when I'm lucky, these bursts of insight begin to emerge in no particular order or interval. For example, In June, I was here doing something completely unrelated, and my brain asked me this:
🧠 "*—Why don't you just send an email for each article you post?*"
It was indeed a good idea. It's not only much easier technically speaking, but #Substack, the platform I was already using, had that feature. So, it was just a matter of copying the post from my blog and pasting it on Substack. In hindsight, I don't even remember why I decided to send a monthly compilation of posts.
Of course, the new plan came with its own set of problems. Because that made things so much easier, at some point I decided to post the articles across more platforms, which led me back to a time-consuming task. Not to mention that I'm unsure if it's worth the effort.
Little did I know, my brain had been secretly plotting to automate the process I gave up many months ago, and today it came up with another brilliant insight:
🧠 "*—Compared to what you attempted to do in the past, I'm pretty sure it is much easier to create an automation on your blog platform to send a single article instead of that compilation.*"
That's a great idea, I thought. And here we are. This is a test article to make sure posts like this get sent automatically. If everything goes as planned, I will be able to centralize all the processes of posting and sending the [[vladcampos.com/Newsletter|newsletter]] in a single place. And it will all be done on its own. Finally!
`Update: It worked!`
It is amazing that, while trying to simplify a situation, we often end up making things even more complicated. As I mentioned in [[vladcampos.com/Blog/2024-09-21 • More than just features—Bending Spoons has a vision for Evernote|yesterday's post]], sometimes it's just a matter of turning things around a little to see how simple a solution can be.
![[vladcampos.com/_embedded/After Post|After Post]]