13 Automation Apps to Save Time, Energy, and Executive Functioning

The gist: Manage executive dysfunction and save time with these essential third-party automation apps for 2025.

Most of the apps we use these days have some kind of built-in automation features.

(Although right now, they’re probably being branded as AI, even though they’re not. 🙄)

For example, I’m writing this draft in Notion, completing a task that was automatically created by adding a new blog post to the content calendar. And I’ll publish it on a website content management platform and an email marketing tool that each have a ton of automation features, too.

And while those features are great for basic automation with the apps you use the most, they present a problem when you want to automate something outside of that specific app.

That’s what third-party automation tools are for.

These are apps like Shortcuts, Zapier, and Make, that let you build automated workflows using multiple apps, instead of just one.

Making apps “talk” to each other and “work together” like this is my favorite kind of automation.

So today I want to recommend a few of my favorite third-party automation tools, in case you’re looking for anything new to play with. 🙃

MacOS automation apps

Let’s start with the Mac operating system, since that’s where I spend most of my time.

Some of my favorite automation apps for the Mac are:

• Shortcuts: this is the only automation app I use that works across ALL of my devices…my laptop, my phone, my iPad, even my watch. So it’s what I end up using the most and turn to first when I want to automate something.
• Keyboard Maestro: this app has some incredibly powerful and advanced automation features, but a more user-friendly and intuitive interface than some of the other tools with such advanced building features. If you ever have a super niche or complex automation you want to try, that Shortcuts doesn’t support, Keyboard Maestro is probably your best bet.
• Shortery: one feature Shortcuts has on iOS and iPadOS, but is missing from Mac, is automating Shortcuts to run under certain conditions. Shortery fills this gap by letting you automate a Shortcut triggering based on the time of day, the computer’s power status, what focus mode it’s in, a specific app opening, and more.
• Hazel: Hazel is the reason I have a clean desktop and a downloads folder that’s actually organized, and for that I will be forever thankful. It’s a file automation app that basically automatically cleans up your Finder for you. For example, I use it to automatically move any file accidentally saved to the desktop to downloads folder, then sort my downloads folder into subfolders based on the type of file (screenshot, photograph, word document, etc.).
• TextExpander: this is a text replacement/keyboard shortcut tool that’s way more powerful than the options you’re given in Apple’s built-in settings. You can create snippets of your most frequently used text, like your name and contact info for filling out forms, and create shorter “trigger phrases” that trigger an automation that automatically replaces the trigger with the full, longer text. For example, when I type ;bb it automatically “expands” into my full name, and ;add turns into my address.
• Alfred: finally, we have Alfred. As I mentioned here, Raycast has replaced Alfred as my go-to launcher app this year. But Raycast doesn’t have anything comparable to Alfred’s workflows, so I still use Alfred for that, and just trigger the workflows through keyboard shortcuts instead of the Alfred launcher.

iOS/iPadOS automation apps

Despite using my phone and iPad less than my laptop, they still power a lot of the automation going on in the background of my life, especially since Shortcuts started on iOS and is more fully built out there.

• Shortcuts: again, Shortcuts has become the first app I try when I want to automate something.
• Pushcut: this is an app that helps you create custom notifications and automate when your shortcuts run based not only on things like time or location, but also more advanced options like calling a webhook or certain conditions being met in your smart home apps.
• Actions: this is a handy little tool that adds extra, more advanced automation actions into your Shortcuts app so that app can handle more complex automations. I like it for some automations that help save my phone’s battery, along with formatting text when “moving” it between apps.
• Toolbox Pro: this is another app that adds more automation actions to Shortcuts. This one has some handy audio actions that I use to quickly switch audio output, and a bunch of actions for Apple Reminders that let you do more than Reminders’ built-in actions.

Web automation tools

Finally, we have web-based automation apps, meaning ones that I control by visiting a website or app in my browser instead of it being tied to a specific device.

These are some of the most powerful automation tools that let you do the fanciest and coolest stuff.

• Zapier: Like others on this list, Zapier integrates with thousands of popular apps and services and lets them work together better. But what I love about Zapier specifically is its extensive documentation, which makes it easy to figure things out and teach yourself the tool, and that it has multiple layouts for building new zaps: both a visual builder and a more linear, text-based one.
• Make: Make is similar to Zapier, but more powerful in some ways and more limited in others. It only has a visual builder, which I personally find a lot more confusing, but also has a fair amount of features Zapier doesn’t. They just might be harder to figure out, depending on how your brain works.
• IFTTT: IFTTT (which stands for “if this, then that”) is similar to Zapier, but with only a linear automation builder, and more of a focus on integrating with personal apps for things like smart homes, health, fitness, and entertainment, where Zapier and Make are more focused on work/productivity integrations.
• Home Assistant: finally, the newest addition to my toolbox is Home Assistant, a free and open-source smart home hub. It lets me control and organize all of my different smart home devices from different brands, in one place, and automate them all together. For example, my living room has 3 different brands of smart lightbulbs in the lamps, but a single automation turns them all on and off together.

Start tinkering around

We’re so used to thinking of our apps as separate tools that can’t work together, that it might be hard to imagine how you would even use these tools to build workflows that automate multiple things.

I will be sharing some of my own favorite automations in an upcoming blog post to give you some ideas, but until then, the best way to figure out how these tools could make your life easier and save you time?

Just go into the tools and start playing around. 🙂

And if you liked this post, you'll also love:

• 4 Ways Automation Helps Reduce Executive Dysfunction
• Restful Recovery: How to Recharge Your Energy to Avoid Burnout
• How I Used Automation to Build Consistent Routines