As someone who’s spent countless hours building complex workflows in N8N, I’ve learned some valuable lessons the hard way. I’ve seen others make the same mistakes, and I’m hoping to spare you the frustration by sharing my top two mistakes and how I overcame them.
The Set Node: Your New Best Friend
I used to waste hours digging through raw data, trying to figure out what was going wrong before a big API call. That was until I discovered the power of the Set Node. Now, I use it to format my payload and give it a clear, descriptive name like payloadToGoogleSheets. This lets me pin the data and visually inspect the exact object being sent. It’s a quick and simple debugging step that saves hours of frustration.
Think of the Set Node as a console.log() for your workflows. It’s a game-changer for debugging and understanding your data flow.
The Wait Node: More Than Just a Delay
I’m guilty of misusing the Wait Node in the past. I’d drop it in a loop to slow things down, but that’s not its true purpose. The real power of the Wait Node lies in using it to respect API rate limits. Instead of a fixed delay, I now check the API’s X-RateLimit-Remaining header after each request. If the remaining count is too low, I dynamically calculate the wait time needed to reset the limit and add a Wait node with that exact duration.
This approach ensures I’m handling high-volume API calls professionally and avoiding getting banned. It’s a simple but crucial step in building reliable workflows.
By avoiding these two mistakes, you’ll be able to build more efficient, scalable, and reliable workflows in N8N. Trust me, your future self will thank you.