There's several approaches here that can help you:
I suppose first and foremost is that for fields that do have a common
default, on your form simply set the default of that control, and that'll
help users a lot.
In your case if you want a repeat the same value type from the last record,
simply hit control +'
(that is control key, and then hit the ' key...it will copy the previous
value for you).
Another approach that works really well is for options like favorite colors
etc is to create a combo box. The advantage of using a combo box is not only
can the user type a few characters, and have the value entered for them, but
you also achieved the time honored goal of preventing bad data being entered
into your database, and this has significant ramifications for reporting
purposes when you total by a particular grouping.
If users Forced to pick from a predefined list, then they can't even make
mistakes during data entry, and this makes reporting work for better
The old adage about garbage in, garbage out rings very true in the database
world.
Another trick for some forms is I simply set the default value of the
control in the after update event..and thus for each record addded...you get
the last default. (I only suggest doing this in cases where you really do
need the same value over and over, because often then uses fail to look at
the contorl, and if they dont' want any value...there will be one..and you
make a bigger mess).
I shall also point out if you're having to enter values over and over,
then that can hint that your database is not necessarily
normalized.
For example we can have a operator who supposed to enter today's date, and
all their work, and the operator named who entered that particular record.
In a non normalized approach, you'd have a field for today's date, and the
operators name who entered that particular information. This means for the
whole day that same two piece of information will be repeated over and over.
If you have a normalized database, then the operator will have some type of
batch job number, the date of today, the operator who is entering the data,
and then all of the records entered by that operator will in
fact become a child table *related* to that task. What this means is today's
date, and the operator number will not be entered over and over.
It is for
this reason why MS access is not designed to automatically repeat
data for you over and like excel does. We use what's called
relational data modeling, or normalized data to solve this problem (in a
sense, if you have to copy the same data over and all over, it hints that
you have a bad database design).
..