Count a routine's runs before you save the schedule
"Check every few minutes" is easy to say and expensive to keep. Every run of a routine spends usage, and frequent schedules add up faster than they sound. Before you accept a schedule, multiply it out to a week.
The weekly count
- Every 5 minutes: 288 runs a day, 2,016 a week.
- Every 15 minutes: 672 a week.
- Every 30 minutes: 336 a week.
- Hourly, around the clock: 168 a week.
- Hourly from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays: 55 a week.
- Once each weekday morning: 5 a week.
The jump from the top of that list to the bottom is the whole point. Most watches don't need to be fast. They need to be on time for when you'll actually look.
Ask yourself two questions
How soon would I act on this? If you only read the result at lunch, a check every five minutes buys you nothing over one at 11:30.
When does the thing change? A county agenda goes up during office hours. A weekly report lands on Monday. Match the schedule to that, and leave nights and weekends out unless the subject really happens then.
Then set it in plain words
Tell the Bot the narrower schedule, such as "weekdays at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m." Then open the routine and read When to run, which spells out the saved schedule. If that isn't what you asked for, choose Edit and describe the change.
Event triggers deserve the same count. Set a Slack trigger to fire on every message in a lively channel and it runs each time anyone posts, so limit it to a phrase, a mention or one channel.
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