Idea: 108
Saturday, 18 April 2015
By. Tyler Koblasa and Vaite Leprince
Inspired by Thesis #05: Workflow Automation
Keystroke
— Textexpander for keystrokes.
Textexpander creates shortcuts for typing snippets of text. Keystroke creates shortcuts for… repetitive keystrokes.
Any combination of keystrokes can be programmed to repeat.
Imagine an app installed on your Mac’s toolbar, constantly scanning your keystrokes for patterns. If you repeat a set of keystrokes more than once, it suggests you automate the keystroke.
For example, suppose you have a webpage.
— On this webpage, every third line has important information.
— You need to copy that information onto a spreadsheet
— There are 3,000 lines
— Normally, you would have to copy, paste, and format each line
— Then repeat that process 1,000 times
— With Keystroke, you just program in the process once, then watch it repeat 1,000 times
Yes, this example sucks. But it sucks for a reason. Every day, millions of digital workers do all sorts of mundane tasks like this. These tasks don’t make for interesting examples. Out of context, they might not even make sense. They suck. But they need to get done. The more high powered a professional is, the more frustrating this must be. To get on with the strategic work, you have to do all the busy work. And often, the busy work takes just as much time.
? Can you think of a recent example? A better one?
? As you go about your day, can you spot situations where you repeat keystrokes?

