If you “automate everything” you end up with cargo-cult of your process.

What you should do instead is employing Elon’s 5 steps protocol (“the Algorithm”) that consists of in order:

  1. Question (requirements)
  2. Delete
  3. Simplify / Optimize
  4. Accelerate (cycle time) 
  5. Automate

Always. In. That. Order.

If you automate something that meets unnecessary requirements – you’re doing it wrong.

If you automate something that shouldn’t even exist – you’re doing it wrong.

If you automate something before you try and simplify it real hard – you’re doing it wrong.

If you automate something prior to accelerating it’s cycle time – you’re doing it wrong.

Every such automation helps cultivate current pathology.

Possibly the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimise a thing that should not exist,

Elon

What a waste it is to automate “everything”!

Automate aggressively but first own the progress and make sure you automate the right thing.