What does it mean that automate error detection where possible?

Use tools and systems to catch errors that manual vigilance misses.

Example: You proofread your own writing before sending it. You catch typos sometimes — maybe most of the time. But you consistently miss the same categories of mistake: duplicated words across line breaks, incorrect homophones that pass as real words, subject-verb disagreement in long sentences. You have been proofreading for years, and these errors persist. Now compare: a colleague runs every draft through an automated grammar checker before reading it. The tool catches the mechanical errors instantly — every time, without fatigue, without mood, without the cognitive blindness that comes from having just written the words. The colleague's manual review is then free to focus on tone, argument structure, and clarity — the things that actually require human judgment. Same effort. One system catches what the other cannot.

Try this: Identify one recurring error in your work or life — a type of mistake you make repeatedly despite knowing better. Examples: forgetting to attach files before sending emails, miscalculating time estimates, overlooking a step in a multi-step process. Now design or install one automated detection mechanism for that specific error. This could be a software tool (spell-checker, linter, calendar alert), a physical constraint (putting your keys on top of your lunch so you cannot leave without both), or a template with built-in checkpoints. Use it for three days. At the end of the three days, count how many times the mechanism caught something you would have missed. You now have empirical evidence for the value of automated detection over manual vigilance.