Senior leadership is difficult because your work spans fifteen different systems, and your brain is the only thing connecting them.
Meetings bleed into each other. Decisions happen in threads without your input. Someone mentions your name in a planning session, and an action item appears in a document you have never seen. You discover it two weeks later when a colleague asks for an update.
Last year, a team almost missed a performance review deadline because the announcement appeared in a channel nobody was monitoring. One person spent ten minutes searching Slack without success. Another found the date in an unrelated thread. I admitted the team dropped the ball on following up in Slack and took the blame. This happens when your brain is the sole system for everything.
I spent so much energy context-switching that I had nothing left for the thinking, connecting, and creating my role requires. I started using automations in the GitHub Copilot app, and it changed my workflow.
What automations actually are
The GitHub Copilot app is a standalone desktop application for macOS, Windows, and Linux, built for working with agents rather than just talking to them. You can run parallel sessions across repositories, each on its own branch and worktree. You can see what agents are doing in real time through canvases, which are bidirectional work surfaces where you and the agent operate on the same plan, terminal, or browser session. Progress is visible and steerable, not buried in chat history.
Automations are scheduled prompts that run against your real work context: your calendar, your email, your messages, your GitHub repos. They connect through MCP servers and integrations, so they can see what is happening across all the places your work lives. They tell me what actually needs my attention, which lets me ignore the rest.
Think of them as agents with a standing brief. You tell them what to care about, how to think, and when to run. Then they just do it. Every day. Without you remembering to ask. Which is good, because you won’t.
What this looks like
I am a senior director at GitHub. I lead developer relations. My scope is wide, my calendar is full, and my brain works differently than most people assume. I have AuDHD, which means I am good at pattern recognition and deep focus, but genuinely terrible at remembering which thread I promised to follow up on three days ago.
I did not set out to build 40 automations. I was curious about the automations tab, asked the app what it could do, and it suggested things I had not thought of. The first time I set one up, I opened a chat and said something like: “Look across all of my work surfaces, my calendar, my email, my messages, and figure out where I’m dropping balls, where I might need help, and suggest automations that would be useful.”
It immediately suggested about six. The first drafts were not perfect, and that is okay. You refine them. You give them voice. You teach them how you think. Once I saw what was possible, I kept going. Now I have about 40.
I will not walk through all of them. But here are the categories that matter most, and some highlights from each.
The morning brief
Every day before I open anything, several automations have already run. Meeting Prep pulls my calendar and builds context for every meeting, with different formats for one-on-ones versus large syncs versus external calls. By the time I sit down, I know what each meeting is about and what I need to bring. Pre-Meeting Access Check verifies I actually have access to the docs and links referenced in the invite. No more showing up and realising the agenda doc is locked. If you have never experienced that particular panic, it must be nice. Daily Triage Digest sweeps GitHub, email, and messages for anything that needs my attention.
The cumulative effect is that my mornings went from “frantically opening twelve tabs while pretending I’ve read the agenda” to “reading a few summaries with coffee.” It is a different life.
Staying current
I cannot be surprised by our own launches. That is literally the job.
Ship Decoder finds everything GitHub shipped in the last 24 hours and explains it to me in plain language. This is real context I can use in conversations. Launch Radar runs weekly and surfaces upcoming launches that touch my team’s space so I am never blindsided. These two alone probably save me an hour a day of scrolling through channels trying to piece together what happened. I used to spend that hour. I did not enjoy that hour.
Career architecture
This is the category that surprised me most. I built automations that actively work on career development, and if that sounds weird, stay with me.
Daily Wins Recap runs every evening and summarises what I actually accomplished. This one matters more than it sounds. My default mode is to check something off and immediately move to the next thing. I do not sit with it. I do not recognise it. I just keep going. Then performance review season comes around. I have to articulate my impact, and I am panic-staring at a blank doc trying to remember eight months of work.
This automation keeps a running record so I do not have to. Think of it as a gratitude practice backed by real data rather than a task list. It counters the “what did I even do today?” spiral that hits hardest on the busy days. On the days when imposter syndrome is loud, I need something that talks back to it with facts. The robot believes in me even when I do not. That is oddly moving? I do not know. It works.
Team and people
This is where I want to be really honest, because I know you might be thinking: is she automating the human parts of her job?
No. And that distinction matters to me more than anything else in this post.
Commitments and Follow-Up Tracker searches my own messages for things I said I’d do and flags what I have not done yet. This one is humbling. And essential. Because when I tell someone “I’ll look into this” and then forget, that is a trust problem. The automation protects the trust.
The kudos I write are still mine. The noticing is still mine. The automation just makes sure my brain does not steal it from the people who deserve it.
These automations do not replace connection. They enable it. They give me back the headspace to actually show up for people. Before this system, I would walk into conversations distracted or running on fumes, because my brain was full of operational noise. Now when I sit down in a one-on-one, I am actually present. When I write recognition for my team, it is specific and real.
The automations handle the scaffolding. I do the human work. That is the deal.
Maintenance and logistics
This category covers the boring stuff that quietly eats your week if you let it: Dependabot PR Triage finds and merges safe dependency updates across my repos daily. Handled. Stale Work Finder surfaces pull requests I opened and forgot, issues that went quiet, branches collecting dust. (We all have those. Do not lie.) Travel Logistics Tracker watches for conference-related threads and consolidates logistics into a single brief. Conference season is chaos. This helps.
What my automations look like
Here is a real one from my setup, the Stale Work Finder, so you can see what these prompts actually look like in practice:
Find all my stale work across GitHub using the gh CLI. Things that are falling through the cracks.
Check for:
- PRs I opened that haven't received a review in 7+ days
- PRs I'm assigned to review that I haven't reviewed yet (older than 3 days)
- Issues assigned to me that have had no activity in 14+ days
- Draft PRs I own that have been drafts for 2+ weeks
- For each item show: repo, title, link, how long it's been stale, and who's involved.
Format as:
1. 🔴 Embarrassingly stale (3+ weeks)
2. 🟡 Getting dusty (1-3 weeks)
3. 🟢 Just needs a nudge (under a week)What it means
For leaders juggling multiple tools and channels, the shift is practical. Automations act as a second brain, handling the operational noise so you can focus on strategy and people. The system ensures nothing slips through the cracks, protects your credibility with the team, and provides a factual record for your own development. It is not about replacing human connection; it is about clearing the clutter so that connection becomes possible.
