Tag Archive for: things

Illustration of a human head in profile against a light background, exploding with a vibrant, abstract array of shapes and objects. Colorful lines, swirls, clouds, and various symbols, like music notes, a pencil, and a light bulb, suggest a burst of creativity or brainstorming. The style is whimsical and highly detailed, using a blue, red, and yellow palette.

One of my first YouTube videos and first automations that included Drafts was about getting tasks into my task manager, which at the time was OmniFocus.

Over the years, this process has evolved to include JavaScript and Things 3; I’m happy to share the most recent version here today.

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Screenshot of a user interface for automation setup, with options to trigger actions at a specified time or by script. The focus is on an AppleScript code snippet, partially redacted, which interacts with the "Things3" application. It includes logic to handle tasks, involving tokens and URLs for updates, with conditions based on task properties such as whether a tag's name is "evening" or if a task is a project. The script is designed to automate task management based on time of day.

One of the most common issues I see fellow Things users complain about on the Things Sub-Reddit is the frustrating experience with repeating tasks and the evening section of the Today view.

I always forget that this is an issue for people because I automated a solution long ago. Let me show you how.

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Screenshot of a script editor with a partially visible AppleScript code titled "Add Tags Based on Family Members". The code includes commands to set variables for family members, iterate through areas and to-dos, and conditionally add tags to items based on the presence of family member names within the item titles. The user interface shows the script editing window with options to run, stop, and share the script, and there is a description field below the code that is empty.

I shared a post on Mastodon about using ChatGPT to create small scripts to deal with the various friction points in my digital life. I put together a short post sharing the script I use to maintain my tags in Things.

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I have become obsessed with checklists since reading The Checklist Manifesto. Automating checklists is even better!

Here is a video explaining how I use Drafts to write, store, and revise my checklists (e.g., project templates) to use in Things.

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As I have explained before, I try to deal with stressful situations by planning ahead, most often through checklists or automations.

Deciding to keep my sick kid home from school and communicating with his teacher(s) and the staff quickly is just such a situation. I have created two Drafts accounts to help me in those times.

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