One of the features of iOS 12 that I wish I used more often since its release is Shortcuts. I don’t mean the Siri shortcuts where Siri looks at things you do all the time and offers to make them a shortcut, I mean the automation system that Apple launched with iOS 12.
If you don’t know what a Shortcut is, you can check out more about Shortcuts here.
I am by no means a maestro at creating Shortcuts, in fact, I’m kind of bad at it. It takes me many tries and adjustments to make things work well.
But I wanted to show off some of my most used and helpful Siri shortcuts. Click on the link to actually get the Shortcut. When you get it, it might ask you questions to make the shortcut personalized for yourself.
#1: head to work
This is one of the few successful shortcuts that I’ve created and I think it’s pretty useful. When activating this Shortcut (which I’ve tied into Siri with the phrase “Heading to Work”) the first thing it will do is look up the direction to your work. You will need to start the directions if you want them, or you can just check the commute.
Next, it will start a podcast. You can tune this to your liking as well if you don’t like podcasts. I prefer to start my morning with them to let my mind focus more than if there were music.
Finally, the shortcut will set your home to a scene of your choosing. My wife is usually still sleeping, so I have it turn the lights off and lock the front door.
#2. Heading home
This is the inverse of the one above. I use this shortcut to find the best way home, start my music, and let my wife know how long it should be before I get home. I also have a version of this that starts a podcast as well.
I actually didn’t make this shortcut. I found it in the gallery on the shortcuts app and edited it to my liking. I encourage you to do the same.
#3. Cross-Post
This is a pretty useful shortcut that I tweaked from the gallery as well. I really haven’t found a solution
that I like to get my post from this website to appear on social media so I made adjusted this to post a URL to Twitter and Facebook book. I wish this was more automated though so I could set it to post from a certain account, I’ll just keep posting to the wrong account until I start to remember where to post it.
I also couldn’t figure out how to get the text to show up in my Facebook post so I set it to copy what it post to twitter and then I paste it into the Facebook post.
I have this set up to be used from the share sheet since I’m usually posting a website.
I like to take action shots with my camera. In my other current job, I’m a coach and I like to take live photos of my players. While the live photos are really cool when browsing through your library, they don’t post to the places that the kids go. So I found this to turn live photos into a GIF so I can post the action on social media.
I talked about this one before. I luckily haven’t had to test this one out.
This one will turn your screen off, send your location to someone of your choosing, start a video recording, send that to someone of your choosing, and more. Its more of a safety thing. (Remember, not all cops are evil, most are there to help)
Bonus: Michael Scott Quote
If you’re an office fan, you might want this one. I put this one on the Widget screen and use it whenever I’m having a moment that needs to be lightened up.
It will randomly supply you with a Michael Scott Quote. You can keep rolling through them until you get a couple of good ones too.
Wrap up
Please help yourself to any of the shortcuts I’ve posted. Change them up as you see fit.
Are there any shortcuts you’d like to see? I might make this a monthly column if I can find enough cool ones to keep me going.
What are you favorite shortcuts? Let me know in the comments
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