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I keep hearing about automation tools for productivity but I'm skeptical about the time investment required to set them up versus the time they actually save. What automation tools have you implemented that provided real ROI? I'm especially interested in ones that connect different apps and services to reduce manual data entry and repetitive tasks.

Zapier has been worth every minute of setup time for me. I use it to connect my task manager, calendar, and email to automate repetitive workflows. One of my favorite automations: when I get an email with an attachment, it automatically saves to Google Drive and creates a task in Todoist. The time savings add up quickly.

For team automation, IFTTT (If This Then That) has provided great ROI with minimal setup time. We use it for things like automatically posting social media updates, saving email attachments to cloud storage, and creating calendar events from forms. The pre-built applets mean you often don't need to create anything from scratch.

Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Flow) has been incredibly valuable for our Office 365 environment. The learning curve is reasonable, and it integrates seamlessly with all Microsoft products. We've automated document approval workflows, data collection from forms, and report generation. The time savings on monthly reporting alone justified the setup time.

I’m trying to precipitate copper carbonate in my home lab by mixing solutions of copper sulfate and sodium carbonate, but instead of a nice solid forming, I keep getting this gel-like, sludgy mess that’s a nightmare to filter. I followed the molar ratios carefully, so I’m wondering if the temperature or the order of addition is what’s causing this.

That gel is classic copper carbonate behavior when carbonate is in play. It swells and hydrates into a blue sludge instead of neat crystals, and it rarely clumps into a solid right away.

In my experience the order of mixing matters a lot; adding a lot of carbonate to a copper solution tends to make a gel, while adding more slowly can give small crystals, though not always.

Could be that what you’re seeing is copper hydroxide gel rather than a true carbonate solid.

Also watch out for impurities or water chemistry; hard water or dissolved organics can mess with precipitation and keep things slimy.

Question: have you checked the pH or left a small sample to sit and see if it ages into something recognizable?

Temperature matters, but not in a clean way; sometimes colder makes a more turbid, slow precipitation and frankly it can stay stringy.

One time I had a similar mess and ended up giving up and filtering through paper towels, which was a nightmare and taught me to abandon that batch.

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