Natalie Guevara, a senior director at GitHub, describes how she automated parts of her job using the GitHub Copilot app, which she says made her a better leader. She explains that senior leadership is hard not because of any single task, but because work lives in many places and her brain was the only system connecting them. She often missed deadlines or action items buried in different channels.
She started using automations in the GitHub Copilot app, a standalone desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Automations are scheduled prompts that run against real work context: calendar, email, messages, and GitHub repos. They connect through MCP servers and integrations. She now has about 40 automations, which she refined over time.
Key categories include: Morning Brief (Meeting Prep, Pre-Meeting Access Check, Daily Triage Digest), Staying Current (Ship Decoder, Launch Radar), Career Architecture (Daily Wins Recap), Team and People (Commitments and Follow-Up Tracker), and Maintenance and Logistics (Dependabot PR Triage, Stale Work Finder, Travel Logistics Tracker).
She emphasizes that automations do not replace human connection but enable it by freeing up headspace. For her, as someone with AuDHD, automations are an accessibility tool that narrows the gap between good and bad executive function days. She advises starting with one automation that addresses the biggest friction point, then iterating.
The post concludes that AI at work is not just about generation but about augmenting invisible labor, giving leaders back the headspace to do the work they are meant to do.
