If you do something more than once, write down the steps taken to complete the task. Chances are, if you have to do something twice, you’ll need to repeat it more times later.
Having a rule that everyone at the company writes things down when repeated has several advantages. The knowledge needed to perform the task or process doesn’t need to be rediscovered by the next person. Documentation is automation and opens up the possibility to fully automate it with software.
From The Great CEO Within.
See also:
- Automation reduces marginal cost of nonautomated tasks
- A list of tasks describes multi-party processes poorly
Links to this note
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How Long Should You Spend Automating Tasks?
This chart, adapted from xkcd, tells you the amount of time saved over 5 years based on how much time you are able to shave off of the task. For example, a task that you do daily that you are able to reduce by 30 minutes will save 5 weeks of time over 5 years. This chart can also tell you how much time you should spend on trying to optimize so you don’t spend more time than it’s worth.