I love the [[Shortcuts App]]. Shortcuts are on par with *any* other tool I'd claim to have in my toolbelt. ## What are Shortcuts? Shortcuts are scripts. They are a sequence of events you can program your phone[^1] to do automatically whenever you want. They are like little one-use apps you can make yourself from your phone[^1]. They can supercharge all sorts of workflows and make your life so much easier. ### What can they do? Shortcuts can be used to do almost *anything* and can be triggered easily from any phone, watch, iPad, or Mac using your fingers, keyboard, voice, or automatically on your behalf in accordance with various contextual triggers. ![[Pasted image 20241115212236.png]] ### How have I used them? I have used Shortcuts for **years** as a primary means of tracking [[PDW]] data, adding tasks to my [[task manager]], adding content to my [[Obsidian]]-based [[Bullet Journaling|Bullet Journal]], setting timers, creating deep-links to particular parts of apps from my home screen, exporting health data, getting weather reports, playing music, changing focus modes on my phone, and powering up my [[Streaks]]-app streaks. It is an *under*-exaggeration to say "I use Shortcuts **daily**". I use shortcuts on a near hourly-basis. ### What's the catch? Okay so shortcuts are great, why doesn't everyone use them? The problem is that there is a learning curve... and they are tedious to work with. This makes the learning process not all that fun. [^1]: or other Apple devices