Automate Your Life

There are so many useful apps and services to save you time and hassle (Instacart and Postmates are a few of my favorites).  Here are a few other tools that you may not have heard of, written by the Product Hunt team.

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a task thinking, “There’s got to be a better way to do this”? You’re probably right. Every day at Product Hunt, we see makers creating tools that automate the most tedious aspects of everyday life—from coupon cutting to email writing. We put together a list of seven great products that will help you automate a bunch of the time-consuming tasks you might run into each day. Check out the list below—and if you still want to automate more of your life after trying some of these, you can find an expanded collection of life automation tools in this collection on Product Hunt.

Coupons at Checkout

Auto-magically finds coupon codes during online checkout.

If you’re a frequent online shopper, this is a must-have Chrome extension. Once you’ve downloaded it, Coupons at Checkout will automatically search for coupons when you purchase something online. Before checkout, this extension will work its magic, scouring the web for valid codes to help you save money on the items in your cart. Make sure the Savings Guard and Code Revealer are turned on, and you’re ready to shop! Automated shopping savings, here you come.

Listomatic

Automatically create and manage Twitter lists.

Creating lists on Twitter is meant to help you organize your feed into users who have things in common. But, adding to and keeping your Twitter lists organized can turn into a tedious process. If you’ve ever wished you had an app to do this more seamlessly, Listomatic is what you’ve been waiting for. You’ve got to play around with the app a little bit to make it work best for you, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll start getting more use out of your lists with this automated tool. Listomatic will create and add interesting people to your personal Twitter lists. This is a fun way to discover new people to follow and stay updated on the latest news from top sources.

Hazel

Automatically file, organize, and clean up your Mac

Cleaning up your computer files might just be the most tedious task ever.Enter: Hazel. This app will automatically organize your files based on name, date, file type, etc. You can also have Hazel rename your files, or sort them into subfolders. It’s a rule-based engine that helps you keep your Mac clean and organized, saving you a ton of time on sorting, organizing, and deleting everything that makes its way onto your computer. It takes a little bit of time to set up and understand, but the program is mostly intuitive and well worth the effort. Trust us on this one.

With all that time you just won back, check out some more automation apps in the rest of the collection, curated by the Product Hunt team. Whether you’re looking to automate your startup’s digital advertising efforts or put your diet on autopilot?—?and everything in between?—?you’ll find something to streamline your life in this collection. Enjoy!

Gorgias

Write emails faster using keyboard shortcuts and templates.

If you’ve ever found yourself writing the same answers via email, Gorgias templates will save you the trouble going forward. You can use custom variables, like the recipient’s first name, to personalize your messages. You can also give particular templates a keyboard shortcut so that, essentially, you can get the body of your most commonly written emails out with just the press of a key. Gorgias is like a helpdesk meant to provide support at scale, but the Chrome extension is perfect for just about anyone—even if you aren’t working on or managing a customer support team.

Trakt.tv 2.0

Automatically track TV & movies you’re watching.

This is like TV Guide on speed. You can check out what TV shows and movies are trending, popular, most anticipated, and most watched. You can also see the top 10 grossing movies at the US box office last weekend, which gets updated every Monday morning. One of the best features is a calendar, which tells you what TV shows, premieres, and movies are playing each day.

Our personal favorite? Trakt.tv’s discovery tab helps you find new shows and movies based on trends and curated content from the Trakt.tv community. You’ve got access to trends, featured lists, and great user comments to help you find your next favorite thing. No more scrolling endlessly through trailers to find something new to watch!

Workflow

Automate things you do every day on your iPhone/iPad

Workflow enables you to connect various apps and actions to automate things you typically do on your iPhone or iPad. Building a workflow is pretty easy?—?you just have to drag and drop a series of actions in a pair. With over 200 different actions, the possible combinations are endless. Co-Founder Ari Weinstein and his team built Workflow because they “wanted a better way to get things done” on their iOS devices. You can share your calendar, tweet a song, make a PDF?—?and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Give it a try today; you’ll have fun playing around with this app.

Product Hunt on IFTTT

Connect Product Hunt to hundreds of your favorite services.

IFTT is one of the most beloved automation tools on the web. It connects various programs you use to one another with “recipes”—triggers that follow an “if this, than that” formula. Now, there’s an entire series of recipes created for Product Hunt enthusiasts. You can do a bunch of cool things like: save products you upvote to a Google spreadsheet, automatically tweet and share products you upvote, and get an email whenever there is a relevant new collection featured on Product Hunt. Try out one of these recipes today—and if you don’t already use IFTT, it’s a tool worth playing around with. You’ll be shocked by how organized it will keep you and how much time it’ll save you when used effectively.

Hope you enjoyed this list and found something useful on it. Looking for even more tools to help you automate your life? You can find the full collection here on Product Hunt: