meetings
Heh. 1000 meetings later, we still need more meetings for reducing repetitive tasks. I feel like this world is no longer real.
Ask HN: What are some repetitive tasks you do at work?
21–30 of 68 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are some repetitive tasks you do at work?
#22None. (I am a pure math researcher.)
Not sure if serious or joking. You don't stand up every now and then to stretch your legs? You don't take a sip of coffee or tea or water periodically? You don't ever run out of ink or pens or paper and have to get new ones? You don't ever check your email or flip through math journals looking for interesting new papers being published? You don't ever turn on a computer or turn it off/put it to sleep? These are all r…
The keyword should be "tedious", not just repetitive. I wouldn't want a machine to automate my getting up and stretching or making and drinking a coffee, those are activities that are arguably needed to keep oneself sane while working.
Re: Ask HN: What are some repetitive tasks you do at work?
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't consider any of those tasks repetitive. Well your first batch, you added more after I commented.
Oh I'm still adding. I consider them all repetitive, but it's okay to debate some or most. The point is I'm guessing about a stranger's life and I'm bound to hit on some repetitive tasks they do. The answer 'none' is just condescending to the point of silly and it's obviously not true. I'm hoping to illuminate how there are repetitive patterns in everyone's life. Even 'pure math researchers'.
I think you're interpreting the original question too broadly. Based on the follow-up, the question was meant to mean "what repetitive tasks do you do at work that can be automated through software?"
Re: Ask HN: What are some repetitive tasks you do at work?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't consider any of those tasks repetitive. Well your first batch, you added more after I commented.
Oh I'm still adding. I consider them all repetitive, but it's okay to debate some or most. The point is I'm guessing about a stranger's life and I'm bound to hit on some repetitive tasks they do. The answer 'none' is just condescending to the point of silly and it's obviously not true. I'm hoping to illuminate how there are repetitive patterns in everyone's life. Even 'pure math researchers'.
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Re: Ask HN: What are some repetitive tasks you do at work?
#25I try to script everything that I have to do on a regular basis, or that I have to do repeatedly and have to look up how to perform each time. For me, this is a random assortment that I can remember off the top of my head:
* creating a json for meeting notes from a template based on the type of meeting (1on1, mentorship, some project, etc), that includes action items and other relevant metadata from the last meeting of that type with that person/group * creating a todoist item for a particular project * killing any running processes that match a particular string * various git hooks for linting or mirroring changes between GitHub and bitbucket * scraping the AKC website to see if there are any new puppy litters listed for the particular kind of dog I’m looking for, and emailing the results to myself and my girlfriend * loading a particular subset of deidentified prod data into my local db for dev work * adding/enabling openssh to a docker container to be able to use a remote ssh interpreter
But in general, something I heard a while ago in reference to finding niche work when contracting as a dev in an industry that you might be unfamiliar with is “find what people are using excel for, and automate it”.
Re: Ask HN: What are some repetitive tasks you do at work?
#26None. (I am a pure math researcher.)
Not sure if serious or joking. You don't stand up every now and then to stretch your legs? You don't take a sip of coffee or tea or water periodically? You don't ever run out of ink or pens or paper and have to get new ones? You don't ever check your email or flip through math journals looking for interesting new papers being published? You don't ever turn on a computer or turn it off/put it to sleep? These are all r…
You forgot "breathing" and "peeing". Maybe a startup could solve these repetitive time wasters
Re: Ask HN: What are some repetitive tasks you do at work?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh I'm still adding. I consider them all repetitive, but it's okay to debate some or most. The point is I'm guessing about a stranger's life and I'm bound to hit on some repetitive tasks they do. The answer 'none' is just condescending to the point of silly and it's obviously not true. I'm hoping to illuminate how there are repetitive patterns in everyone's life. Even 'pure math researchers'.
I think you're interpreting the original question too broadly. Based on the follow-up, the question was meant to mean "what repetitive tasks do you do at work that can be automated through software ?"
So the commenter is on HN, but has literally zero (0) things that could be automated through software in their life? I just don't believe it's true.
Sorry if some of my guesses were not in line with the question directly.
Re: Ask HN: What are some repetitive tasks you do at work?
#28"I’d have to log into GCloud console every once in a while to check if I still have enough credits" => that is the perfect task to automate with "Kantu".
In a nutshell it is a macro recorder for the web browser (Open-Source browser extension for Chrome and Firefox).
Re: Ask HN: What are some repetitive tasks you do at work?
#29I'm a software developer at a small company.
My typical daily flow is usually like so:
- Check email, slack, etc. and respond
- Review PR
- Test PR
- Respond to PR
- Review case requirements
- Respond to case requirements
- Write code for case
- Test code for case
- Create PR
Some of my coworkers use AutoHotkey for automating common tasks, but I don't feel like I'd save that much time by using that. I probably waste the most time waiting for builds, which can take up to 20 seconds. I tend to lose focus when I have to wait for things, which probably impacts my productivity.
I don't really do a lot of repetitive tasks. This is something that I really like about being a software developer. If I had a task that was annoyingly repetitive, I'd automate it myself.