As soon as you start to copy/paste certain instructions from one recipe to another, you're probably doing something wrong.
Examples
- You might have a few recipes which describe working on a website - and you're giving login instructions in each recipe.
- You are creating recipes for working with a software (Microsoft Word, your ERP, etc.) and you have the same instructions for getting to a special dialog which you are repeating.
- You are describing various processes to clean your office, and you have "get ready" steps in each recipe
Problems with Repeating Yourself
As soon as you repeat yourself, you'll end up with various issues like
- your recipes get very big, to describe very trivial steps which most users can skip
- if ever this instruction changes, you will have to find all places where you used it, and make sure you update it (this usually ends up causing problems)
Solution
If you notice that you're repeating yourself - often using copy/paste - you should consider the following changes:
- Create a sub-recipe for only these steps. Even if it's just 1-2 steps, it's probably better in a sub-recipe
- Or better: create a reference-material / information describing this, because often it's nothing you need to click off, but just something the worker will look at