This One Question Changed Everything for My Side Hustle Productivity 🤯
Published 6 days ago • 4 min read
“Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated.” — Tim Ferriss
Hey there!
If you’re trying to grow an online business in the cracks and corners of a busy life—between meetings, baseball practice, and dishes—you know how important every minute is.
Over the last year, I’ve started asking one simple question before I do almost anything:
Can this be done faster, better, or automatically using AI or automation tools?
And I’m telling you—it’s been a game-changer.
The real magic happens when you combine two powerhouse tools: ChatGPT and Make.com.
Let me give you a couple of real-world examples from the Mark Mason brand to show you what I mean.
✅ Example 1: From Podcast to Blog Post… Without Lifting a Finger
I’ve been podcasting for years, and writing detailed show notes used to be one of those things I either spent way too long doing myself, or I paid someone else to do. It wasn’t sustainable.
So I built a system. Now, whenever a new episode drops on my RSS feed, Make.com automatically grabs the audio and transcribes it using Whisper. That transcript is sent to ChatGPT, which analyzes the content, understands what was discussed, and generates show notes. DALL-E generates a hero image.
To go a step further, I added a connection to Perplexity.ai, which pulls in helpful references and links that expand on the episode to improve the content from an "SEO value" perspective. The final result is a set of show notes—summary, key takeaways, resource links—automatically formatted and dropped into WordPress as a draft, ready for me to publish.
What used to take hours (or a chunk of my budget) now happens while I sleep.
✅ Example 2: Auto-Replying to FAQs (Without Losing My Mind)
On a few of my niche websites where I'm just a faceless guy behind a support email address, subscribers reply to my newsletters with solid—but often repeated—questions. Things I’ve answered again and again (and again).
I’ve now built a setup using GoHighLevelwhere those FAQ-style replies are recognized and handled automatically. The system crafts thoughtful, helpful replies in my voice, and sends them back instantly.
That means subscribers get a high-quality answer, fast—and I don’t have to spend every evening buried in repetitive emails. It’s a better experience for them and for me.
🚀 So What About You?
Here’s the real question:
What are you doing every day in your business that could be automated, streamlined, or accelerated with AI?
Start paying attention. That 15-minute task you always dread? That workflow you repeat every week? It might be ripe for automation.
In fact, I’m starting to build more content around this idea—how side hustlers can use AI and automation to reclaim their time and make progress faster. So…
👉 If you’ve got a task you’re struggling with or wondering if you can automate, just hit reply to this email. Tell me what you’re working on, and I’d be happy to brainstorm ideas with you.
I can’t promise I won’t let ChatGPT help me craft the reply if your question is really complicated… but hey, that’s kind of the point, right? 😄
Talk soon,
Mark
P.S. Even this newsletter started out as a voice note conversation with ChatGPT during my morning commute. Me talking to ChatGPT on the freeway as if the bot was sitting with me in the car. As I pulled into my parking spot at work, I asked it to turn that conversation into a newsletter draft—which I later polished inside ConvertKit. (Yes, I’m still in the process of migrating to GoHighLevel for email too!) You're reading that newsletter now. Efficiency for the win.
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