Your first automation idea
How to spot a task worth automating, write it down clearly, and keep a human in the loop — a starter guide for non-engineers and new builders.
Syllabus
Online course
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What you will learn
How to pick a repetitive task, describe it so someone can automate it, and decide where a person still needs to approve.
Good candidates
Work that is frequent, boring and rule-based: copying values between tools, sending the same status email, renaming files to a pattern, chasing a checklist every Friday.
Write it down like this
- Trigger — what starts it? (new form, new email, every Monday 9:00)
- Steps — what happens, in order, with which tools
- Exceptions — when should it stop and ask a human?
- Done means — what does success look like?
Keep people in control
Automate the fetching and drafting. Keep a human checkpoint for money, customer messages or anything you cannot undo easily.
Try this week
Pick one task you did three times already. Time it. If it takes more than ten minutes and follows clear rules, you have a first automation brief.