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Practical advice
Find your first automation in repeated copy and paste
A quick way to spot low-risk work that moves the same information between the same places every week.
The practical answer
Start with this principle
Repeated copy and paste is often a visible sign that two parts of a process can be connected. Start with a frequent, rules-based handoff that is easy to check.
Do this in order
Three steps you can use today
Keep a short friction log
For one week, note each time somebody copies information from an email, form or spreadsheet into another system.
Choose a clean handoff
Prefer a task with consistent fields, a clear trigger and a reversible result. Avoid edge cases and high-stakes decisions for the first build.
Test beside the old process
Run the automation in parallel for a small sample. Compare every output before allowing it to replace the manual handoff.
Copy and adapt
Copy and paste log
Keep this open for two working days. One line each time you copy something
from one place and paste it into another.
Day / time | From (system) | To (system) | What was moved | Minutes
.......... | ............. | ........... | .............. | .......
.......... | ............. | ........... | .............. | .......
At the end, sort by how often the same From and To pair appears. The pair at
the top is your first automation, not the one that sounds most interesting.