One of the things that attracted me to the software world is how good software can really make your life easier. As I like to (half) joke, I'm incredibly lazy, so I like the software to do as much of the work for me as possible.

But the reality is, sometimes it's either literally impossible for the software to do what we need it to do, or it's just too expensive to customize. And in cases like these, well, we'll just have to do the work ourselves! A couple of my favorite examples:

• Banquet seating. While sales of banquet tables can often be automated, sales of individual seats become trickier? Why? Choosing where the individual gets to sit can be difficult. As I tell my clients, "Banquet seating is like wedding reception seating. You have to be sure crazy Uncle Joe and cousin Willy are not seated next to each other because they'll get drunk and fight." The same goes for seating at an industry event! So manual it is!
• Automating shipping fees for product sales. Integrating a third-party shipping service (e.g., UPS) to an AMS is very tricky and very expensive. And if you're only making a dozen sales a week or a month, it's pretty hard to justify paying for a shipping integration. Once again, we'll have to do it manually or come up with some other workaround to address shipping fees.

These are just two of many examples I run into with my clients. Yes, we should automate where we can. But often, we just have to concede that doing it manually (actually doing the work ourselves!) is the right way to get it done.

So be lazy, but don't be too lazy!