Make things easier for yourself and automate when you can.
One of the neat things that are happening for IT/everyone is the rise of tools that make it easier than ever to automate common situations. I have tried to automate things in my own life as much as possible.
For example, working in IT one tends to get their computer cluttered with lots of applications and configuration settings in testing. It means that it is common for IT people to have to reformat and reinstall their computers every year or more. For me, it is more since working as a consultant I want each client to have the best security and format my computer between clients. It might take 2 hours to reinstall everything from scratch and that time is decreasing as I automate it.
The first way I automated reinstalling my computer is to use a password manager. I have loved using 1Password and no I am not getting paid by them. It has helped me cut down on the frustration of all the websites that I use, and it has also helped me become more secure by not reusing passwords. Or if I forget, it helpfully tells me and then I fix that issue.
The next way I automated reinstalling my OS is to have all of my files in the cloud. I have files in both Box/Apple Cloud and that means that I don’t have to worry that I have left something on the desktop.
The third way that I automated reinstalling my OS is now I am considering using a zero-touch deployment tool like JAMF Now or Intune to do this. There are pros/cons to each but both can do the job. I will start setting one or both of those up and then I will be able to enroll my computer/iPhone into those automatically and save the manual effort of configuring what little I have to configure now.
Right now the computer is just a way to get to the Internet. Since I also have a windows 11 computer I would apply that to that zero-touch deployment as well. Since I did this with companies I work for, it is an easy thing for me to do and kind of fun. It might take a few hours to set up, but then it will be so easy in the future to deal with devices.
We have labor-saving devices like washing machines and vacuums. Why are we lazy to set up labor-saving devices like zero-touch deployment?