Do you ever find yourself constantly performing the same simple tasks over and over again when you’re online, doing them so often that you barely notice? Do you always end up saving articles from RSS feeds for later reading or forwarding emails to another account? Do you wish the handy social-network connectivity that exists in many mobile apps could be extended to your desktop?

Well, If This Then That is the answer to your prayers and does exactly this, automating mundane processes so that they happen without you even having to think about it.

The site’s interface works on the simple principle from which it draws its name, with users setting up ‘recipes’ that instruct various services to perform certain tasks. Based on what amounts to an equation where the site is told ‘if (this) then (that)’ a wide variety of your accounts from emails to social networks can be instructed to perform certain tasks in specific situations.

For instance, you can create a recipe which is activated when you are tagged in a Facebook photo to automatically save that photo to SkyDrive. Or, you can have articles from your RSS feed automatically save to your Pocket account for later consumption.

While users can create their own recipes there are a good number of pre-set options available which simplify the process even further. If This Then That is compatible with services such as Dropbox, Evernote, Gmail, Instagram (and a whole host of others) and having tried it out we found that it was a great way of making sure files and messages were automatically backed up.

If This Then That is an original and well though-out idea that, although still in its infancy, could prove to be one of those indispensable services that makes your online life much more streamlined.