Tag Archive for: shortcuts

AppleScript for Pulling Today’s Completed Tasks From Things

A screenshot of an AppleScript editor window titled "Pull Today's Completed Action Items from Things and Create a Day One Entry." The script is designed to retrieve completed tasks from the Things3 app and create a Day One journal entry. The script contains code to set the current date, format it in ISO 8601 format, initialize a list of completed tasks, and fetch tasks from the "Logbook" list. Syntax highlighting shows text in different colors: green for comments, blue for commands, and purple for logic conditions.

Balancing life’s necessary chores with meaningful progress toward our goals can be challenging, especially when greeted by an overflowing task list each morning.

To tackle this, I’ve been exploring ways to not just manage my tasks in Things but also to ensure I’m making real headway on projects that matter. In this post, I’ll show you how an AppleScript is helping me do just that.

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My Triumvirate of Mac Automation Technology

This image is an illustration depicting a young man working on a laptop at a desk. The setting appears to be a cozy home office with a bookshelf, plants, and a window allowing natural light. The perspective is as if looking into a room through an open window, creating a sense of depth. The color palette is warm with earth tones, and the style is clean and modern with a graphic quality.

I have been an avid Mac and iOS automator for a little more than five years. It has, and continues to be, a positive influence on my personal and professional life, as well as a fun hobby.

However, it can be a tricky world to navigate for novices. Coincidently, I got interested in automation just as The Automators podcast was getting started, so it felt like I was being shepherded by the hosts. If you have the time and inclination, I encourage you to check it out from episode one.

In lieu of that, here is an overview of the Mac automation technology I use every day. There are plenty of other valid combinations and tools out there, but this set of tech is irreplaceable for me.

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Remote Controlling My Task Manager

Instead of using different apps for tracking habits or chores, I keep everything in my task manager. This made my task manager cluttered and require too much maintenance until I started automating the marking as complete of various action items via AppleScript.

I made a video explaining and demoing the process; this post also has various downloads and links to help you recreate my work.

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Automate Your Meeting Prep

Meetings are a massive part of knowledge work. So much so that being good at meetings can change the trajectory of your career. Worst case, it saves you time and reduces the number of meetings you need to attend. Best case, your preparedness and follow-through brings you higher quality opportunities and career growth. The only cost is the time you need to spend to prepare.

I made a video about a shortcut I use to automate my meeting preparation, reducing my time investment to seconds while also improving the quality of my work. Let me show you what I did.

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Better Workouts With Shortcuts

Last year when I wanted to build healthy habits, I relied heavily on automations to do that. This video is about how I automated working out!

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