I try to automate as much as I can. I also use these little programs/scripts as opportunities to learn something new. Examples: 1. We had a support portal at w

I try to automate as much as I can. I also use these little programs/scripts as opportunities to learn something new. Examples: 1. We had a support portal at work which I had to check regularly during the day. I wrote a small program that monitors the relevant page and pops up a taskbar notification when something new arrives. Used the opportunity to learn about taskbar notifications and a little WPF. 2. I sometimes get database backups from customers and have to restore them on my machine, which means opening SQL Management studio, clicking and right clicking a bunch of things. Then I need to add myself as user, change a couple of settings before I can use the database for anything. I wrote a small utility so I can right click on any .bak file in explorer, choose Restore database and update the relevant tables so the database is ready to use right away with the connection string on the clipboard. Also used it as an opportunity to learn about windows 7 taskbar progress bars. Basically I like doing small projects, but I never finish them unless they really do something. So, automating stuff I do makes much more sense than learning by following a tutorial that builds something useless.