The Rube Goldberg Problem

A Rose by Any Other Name Would Still Be Overcomplicated

Rube Goldberg machine. Heath Robinson contraption. Goldbergian device. Chain reaction machine. Domino effect apparatus. Unnecessarily complex mechanism.

Whatever you call it, you know exactly what I'm talking about: an absurdly complicated contraption designed to perform a simple task in the most indirect, convoluted way possible.

A bowling ball rolls down a ramp, knocking over dominoes, which trigger a fan, which blows a sailboat across a tub of water, which tips a watering can, which fills a bucket, which drops and pulls a string, which releases a hammer, which cracks an egg into a frying pan.

Congratulations. You've made breakfast.

It's delightful to watch. It's a testament to human creativity. And it's the absolute worst way to approach business automation.

Remember Mouse Trap?

If you grew up in the '80s or '90s, you probably remember the board game Mouse Trap. The entire point of the game was building this ridiculous contraption:

You'd crank a gear, which turned a lever, which pushed a boot, which kicked a bucket, which sent a ball down a rickety staircase, which knocked through a gutter, which tipped a thing that tipped another thing, which eventually—maybe—dropped a plastic cage on your opponent's mouse.

Half the time it didn't even work. A piece would be slightly misaligned, and the whole chain reaction would stall out somewhere around the boot.

And yet, as a kid, you thought it was genius.

Here's the problem: A lot of business automation workflows look exactly like Mouse Trap. Elaborate. Fragile. Impressive-looking. And perpetually one misaligned piece away from complete failure.

The LinkedIn Lead Nightmare

Let me paint you a picture. You're a sales manager, consultant, or small business owner. You know LinkedIn is where your prospects hang out. You've heard automation can help. So you dive into n8n (or Zapier, or Make) and start building.

Here's what the "helpful" tutorial tells you to build:

You know what happens next?

Clearbit's API changes and breaks step 6. Your Google Sheet hits a row limit. The Slack integration gets rate-limited. SendGrid flags you for spam. The Facebook API requires re-authentication every 60 days. And you spend more time maintaining the automation than you ever spent doing the task manually.

You built a Mouse Trap. And just like the board game, it works about half the time.

The Seduction of Complexity

Why do we build these monstrosities?

Because complexity feels like progress.

When you're staring at a sprawling n8n canvas with 47 nodes and conditional branches everywhere, it feels sophisticated. It feels like you've built something powerful. You screenshot it and post it on LinkedIn with the caption "Just automated my entire sales pipeline! 🚀"

But here's the uncomfortable truth:

The best automation isn't the one that does the most things. It's the one that does the right things with the fewest moving parts.

The Elegant Alternative

Let's rebuild that LinkedIn lead workflow. But this time, let's ask a dangerous question:

"What's the minimum viable automation that actually moves the needle?"

Here's what actually matters for most B2B sales processes:

1. Know when someone relevant engages with you
2. Have their info ready when you reach out
3. Don't let good leads fall through the cracks

That's it. Everything else is optimization theater.

"But wait!" I hear you cry. "What about lead scoring? What about email sequences? What about enrichment?"

Here's a radical thought: You don't need to automate everything.

That Slack notification? It takes you 30 seconds to glance at the profile and decide if this person is worth a personalized message. A human can make that judgment call better than any lead scoring algorithm you'll build. And a personalized message you write in 2 minutes will outperform any automated sequence.

The automation handles the tedious parts (data entry, reminders, not forgetting). You handle the valuable parts (judgment, personalization, relationship building).

The Four Rules of Non-Rube-Goldberg Automation

Want to avoid building a Mouse Trap? Follow these rules:

Real Business Problems, Simple Solutions

Let me give you a few examples of workflows that actually work in the real world—without the Rube Goldberg complexity:

The Meta Problem

Here's the deepest irony of the Rube Goldberg approach to automation:

The more complex your automation, the more you need to automate managing your automation.

I've seen companies build monitoring workflows for their workflows. Error-handling workflows for their error-handling workflows. Dashboards to track the dashboards. It's turtles all the way down.

At some point, you have to ask: Are we saving time, or are we just moving the work around?

The goal of automation isn't to build an impressive machine. It's to get more valuable work done with less effort. If your automation requires constant babysitting, troubleshooting, and maintenance—it hasn't automated anything. It's just created a different kind of work.

Don't Get Caught in the Trap

Remember Jerry from Tom and Jerry? That clever little mouse spent entire episodes dancing around elaborate traps. Tom would build these ridiculous contraptions—anvils suspended by pulleys, dynamite triggered by trip wires, cages hidden under cheese.

And Jerry? He'd waltz through, grab the cheese, and watch the whole thing collapse on Tom.

Don't be Tom.

When you build a Rube Goldberg automation, you're not trapping inefficiency—you're trapping yourself. You're the one who has to maintain it. You're the one who gets the 3 AM alert when it breaks. You're the one explaining to your boss why the leads aren't flowing when some random API changed its authentication method.

The mouse (your actual goal of saving time and being more effective) scampers away while you're buried under the rubble of your own contraption.

So the next time you're in n8n (or any automation tool) and you find yourself adding that 15th node, stop. Take a breath. Ask yourself:

"Am I solving a problem, or am I building a really complicated mouse trap?"

Because the goal was never to build a beautiful machine.

The goal was to catch the mouse.