Computing is now interwoven in our daily lives, and if I could start my journey all over again knowing everything I knew today, I'd automate the mundane and repetitive tasks I perform every day right off the bat. We're all guilty of performing the same mundane tasks on a loop. Clicking the same sequence of buttons, typing the same corrections, arranging windows in a preferred layout, the list goes on. Saving time spent performing these repetitive actions is merely a byproduct. The true impact is more mental than physical, alleviating the sinking feeling that I'm stuck doing the same thing every day on Windows.
If you crave variety and creative freedom, automations can free up your mental bandwidth to execute new ideas. I'm not talking about macros you press. It's about creating a system that works for you in the background, a silent, digital butler that anticipates your needs. The most powerful automations are the ones you configure once and then benefit from every single day, often without even noticing they're running. The small time and effort investment in setting them up correctly returns many-fold when you'll use them. Here are four automation routines that changed how I work for good.
Autocorrect and auto-capitalization with AutoHotkey
The convenience of a phone on your PC
I write for a living, but coders and corporate employees may understand the frustration of a common typo like "teh" instead of "the," or the infuriating habit of accidentally hitting Caps Lock and starting a sentence with "tWITTER." Typically, I'd stop, backspace, retype, and derail my train of thought for one mistake. Multiply that by dozens of times it happens daily. It's the death of your productivity by a thousand papercuts.
Early on, I found AutoHotkey excelled at handling menial proofreading duties. Its a free and absurdly powerful scripting language for Windows I used to create a system-wide autocorrect that fixes specific, recurring typos I make everywhere. Implemented through the Hotstrings feature in the support docs, I simply define a list of my common misspellings and their correct counterparts. The following hotstring replaces "teh" with "the" every time I misspell it.
::teh::the
There are even comprehensive, pre-made lists available online that cover thousands of common English misspellings, which you can just drop into your script. But why stop there? The same logic applies to capitalization. You can create hotstrings to fix words you accidentally type with two initial capital letters, such as "THis" becoming "This". It’s a beautifully simple setup where an hour of compiling your own errors permanently outsources the proofreading duties to AHK. Second letter capitalization caused by delayed Shift key release is easily fixed by the following code:
keys = ``qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm
Loop Parse, keys
HotKey ~+%A_LoopField%, Hoty
Hoty:
StringMid c0, A_PriorHotKey,2, 1
StringMid c1, A_ThisHotKey, 3, 1
If (c0 = "+" and A_TimeSincePriorHotkey
Send {BS}%c1%
Return
Dive headfirst into work mode
Hotkeys to launch specific apps in a layout
As we work, we settle into a routine of sorts, using the same programs every day, for pretty much the same task, often preferring it sit in the same general region of the screen. We are unabashed slaves to our habits, but this is where automation really helps save time. Manually opening each program, then snapping them into your preferred arrangement on the screen using Windows Snap Layouts is a tedious ritual. It's only a minute or two, but it's a completely mindless minute that you have to repeat every time you switch contexts.
A more elegant solution is to create a single hotkey that launches a pre-defined group of applications and, ideally, arranges them for you. For a basic setup, you don't even need third-party software. Windows has a built-in, albeit clunky, way to assign a keyboard shortcut to any application. You just find the program's shortcut or create one, right-click to go to Properties, and assign a key combination in the Shortcut key field. I could assign Ctrl+Alt+W for a word processor and Ctrl+Alt+B for a web browser, for instance. It’s a step-up, but still requires multiple keypresses and manual window arrangement.
I returned to AHK and created a script to launch multiple applications with a single hotkey. For example, you could configure Win+W to open your browser and word processor while specifying their exact positions and sizes on the screen. Alternatively, you can use the Groupings feature in Stardock Groupy 2 to save a set of applications and pin it to your taskbar, launching them all in a tabbed group with a single click. This way, your entire workspace materializes exactly as you like it with one command. I go a step further and have the browser pull up specific tabs as well. Here's what the code looks like:
; XDA workspace
F13::
{
Run, "C:\Users\Chandraveer\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\Slack.exe"
Run, Chrome.exe https://docs.google.com/document/u/0
Run, Chrome.exe https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox
Run, Chrome.exe https://mail.proton.me/u/0/inbox
}
Return
Scheduled automatic system maintenance
Keep everything up to date
Your computer, much like a car, needs regular maintenance to run smoothly. Temporary files accumulate, the disk gets fragmented, security scans must run, and driver updates all vie for your attention. Manually performing these tasks is something most of us put off until performance degrades noticeably because nobody wants to spend their Sunday afternoon running Disk Cleanup or a full system scan. This pushes things into a slow decline until we're forced to act.
Windows has long understood this human tendency and includes a built-in Automatic Maintenance tool. This feature is designed to run daily, during a time when you're not using your PC, at 2:00 AM by default. Actions include running a security scan with Windows Defender, performing disk optimization, and running system diagnostics to check for errors. You can customize when it runs and even let it wake the machine from sleep to get the job done, ensuring it doesn't interfere with your work.
The settings are available under Control Panel → System and Security → Security and Maintenance, including manual start option. This simple tool keeps your PC up to date with most changes, so you don't need to wait to feel the sluggishness before hopping into troubleshooting mode.
Automatic program updates
Every software that's installed
Outdated software presents a massive security risk, and a majority of malware attacks exploit known vulnerabilities in software that developers have already patched. However, keeping every single application on your PC updated is a relentless pursuit. You have to open each program, find the "Check for Updates" button, download the installer, and run it.
While Windows Update and automatic updates in the Microsoft Store do a decent job of keeping official utilities and some drivers up to date, the rest of your software library remains vulnerable. A dedicated yet free patch management tool like Patch My PC Home Updater can help here. It packs a scheduler you can configure to run automatically on a daily or weekly basis, silently downloading and installing any available updates in the background with zero user interaction.
winget upgrade --all
For those more comfortable with the command line, Windows Package Manager offers a powerful alternative. The simple command shown above can be scheduled via the Windows Task Scheduler to update all supported applications automatically. Either method transforms software updates from a tedious manual task into a completely automated background process, dramatically improving your system's security with zero ongoing effort.
The Compounding Power of Automation
It’s easy to dismiss these individual automations as minor time-savers. Shaving off ten seconds by autocorrecting a typo or launching apps with a hotkey might not feel revolutionary, but the time saved adds up day after day, turning into hours of reclaimed time over a month or a year.
More importantly, automation eliminates the constant, low-level friction and context-switching that fragments your attention. Every manual correction, every repetitive click, is a tiny interruption that pulls you out of a state of deep focus. By setting up a robust, automated system, you're preserving your mental energy for creative and meaningful work.