The WANTED carousel names five familiar suspects: copy and paste, the inbox, the Friday report, retyping invoices and chasing approvals. The useful next step is to establish which one is causing repeated work in your week. A short work log can separate active effort from waiting and help you choose one improvement with a clear owner and a checkable outcome.

Before you start

Choose a representative working week. Use a simple table with one row per occurrence, including task type, start and finish, active minutes, source tool, destination tool, errors and next owner. Record interruptions consistently. Do not count the same minutes under both inbox handling and the task the message requested. Leave estimates marked as estimates.

The workflow

  1. Catch copy and paste: list the fields that move between tools and why they move. Check whether one stable record ID can connect the systems. Mark each field as source-owned or destination-owned so a connection cannot overwrite an intentional local change.
  2. Catch the inbox: group repeated questions by purpose, not just sender. Note whether the answer needs a factual lookup, a standard explanation or a decision. A useful first pilot sorts and drafts for review; ambiguous messages still need an owner.
  3. Catch the Friday report: list every source, date filter, calculation and recipient. Separate collecting data from interpreting it. A scheduled draft should show its reporting window and source freshness, with a visible warning when a source has not arrived.
  4. Catch retyping: collect example invoice layouts and identify the fields someone checks before entry. Treat automatic extraction as a draft. Retain the source document, require a duplicate check and keep approval with the person accountable for the record.
  5. Catch approval chasing: record how long a decision waits separately from the minutes spent asking for it. Name the approver and backup. Try reminders that include the evidence and stop once the current record says approved, rejected or cancelled.
  6. Choose one suspect: compare observed frequency, active effort, error cost, access requirements and exception rate. Start with a narrow, repeatable task whose result a person can verify. Write the success and stop rules before connecting the pilot.

Worked example

Illustrative example: the log records six copy-and-paste events lasting four active minutes each and two approval waits lasting a day each. The copy task totals 24 active minutes. The two days of waiting are not 48 hours of labor. The team pilots a draft data transfer with review and measures the remaining correction time. These invented values demonstrate the arithmetic; they are not Blynx performance claims.

Your worksheet

  • Observation dates and sample limits: ___
  • Suspect and number of occurrences: ___
  • Observed active minutes, excluding overlaps: ___
  • Waiting time recorded separately: ___
  • Mistakes, repeats and missing inputs: ___
  • Proposed pilot boundary and reviewer: ___
  • Success measure, stop rule and review date: ___

Test it

  1. Have another person trace one logged occurrence and confirm the time is counted once.
  2. Replay a duplicate or incomplete input and confirm the pilot sends it for review.
  3. Compare a normal manual case with a pilot case, including checking and correction time.

What to measure

Report observed totals alongside the sample size and unusual events. Compare similar work before and during the pilot. Treat any projected annual savings as an assumption to validate, and include setup, subscriptions, review and maintenance in the decision.