Finally, from that same Mail library add the Add Attachments to Front Message action to the workflow. Now save your workflow to the desktop and give it an intuitive name.

To invoke it, simply drop a file or folder that you'd like to compress onto the app and watch what happens.

Here's another workflow that uses an iCal event to trigger a workflow. The idea here is that we're going to create a couple of folders and have Automator back up the contents of one to the other at the same time every day.

We'll start by creating a couple of folders. I'll create one on my desktop called To Backup. I'll open this key drive that I've jacked into my Mac and create another folder called My Backup. We'll put these folders to good use in a bit.

Now launch Automator and from the template sheet choose iCal Alarm and click Choose.