Everything Breaks Into Three Parts

Here's something that will feel obvious the moment you see it, but changes how you think about every workflow you'll ever build:

Every automation in the world, no matter how complex, is made of exactly three things:

1. Trigger — Something happens that starts the workflow
2. Action — Something the workflow does in response
3. Data — The information that moves from step to step

That's it. No exceptions. A workflow that fills a spreadsheet with data from your email. A workflow that routes messages based on keywords. A workflow that turns transcripts into summaries. All of them: trigger, action, data.

Once you see this pattern, you'll see it everywhere.