How I started automating my work in minutes

Hallo and welcome to JSZapp.com the right place to learn about automating with scripts.

I’m Jackie Sztuk or JSZ. I have a Drafter’s degree from Copenhagen Technical College (KTS).

I Love automating windows with scripts and writing applications. When I tell people around me, that I do this they are always surprised, but when I show them some of the work I have done, they are amazed.

I would love to help more people understand and learn how scripting, can be used to boost productivity and profit, by everyone in almost any occupation where you use a windows computer. If you use a computer at work or at home, I would love to help or show you how scripts has helped me get more work done in less time…

I started scripting something like 3 years ago, at the time I had just started working at Herlev hospital on a facility management project and one of the tasks I had to do was copying multiple fields of data from one website to another, I thought that hey! If I can copy more than one field at a time, I will get this done faster, so I got to googling and one of the first hits was a scripting language called AutoHotkey.

Within 5 minutes I had found a script, said to be able to hold multiple copied items at ones but alas it did not work right, at least not at that time… but I was sure someone else had the same issue as me, so I looked for something like my error and it was not long after I found a fix, and all I had to do was add a line of text in the right place and it was working, and I, Me, My self, I fixed it! After that I was hooked.

Now I was keen on making it work just like I needed it to, and before long the script, was doing lots of things, at this time the work task had become almost fun, because it was not really me doing it but the computer of all things, and I wrote it all in notepad in a matter of minutes and I was immediately rewarded. Priceless!

As I found myself doing more and more data entry and also found it to be essentially the same kind of data over, and over, and over…. with only a few modifications. I had to try and use AHK for more than just copy/pasting like I had done for a week or two now. I quickly found I was able to automate most of what I wanted.

I was sure the computer could do even more, so I started to write my own scripts, at first the help file was my best friend and also Trial & Error, but I quickly started doing what took 20 minutes in 2-8 minutes. Additionally, I always had a high level of interest in programming, but didn’t have the belief in my writing skills to start before. If I had known about interpreted languages like AHK I may have been a programmer long before today…

Recommended: AHKScript Boards
After about 6 months I did get noticed for completing work so fast, and after telling my boss about what I could do with AHk, I was given the go ahead to find more tasks or processes that could be scripted!

I was not forcing anyone to come forward with their tasks but before long, I had to choose what tasks to work with to remain focused and productive. The longer I use AutoHotkey to automate projects the more I find it has the capability to control windows in more ways then I may ever need.
Because of some of these “apps” I’ve developed over the years, I can now compete with certain consultants at work as my programs can do the same task in the same time as they can, but at a much lower price tag, sometimes several hours of consultant fees a week has been cut to 15-20 minutes a month at a stretch now. AutoHotkey changed all that for me and the place I work. By automating certain small tasks I’ve been able to increase productivity many times over and saved my employer countless man hours in wages and fees.

So, if you are willing to learn about automating with script, then let me share what I have learned over the last 3 years.

I will start you off with:
How to make a script that can hold and paste multiple copied strings.