I have ADHD, so my memory is shit. I’ll get really into doing something at work, get distracted onto another path, then forget about what I’ve been working on and it’ll just languish in a half finished hell.

Which is where my automations come in…

I maintain a list of ongoing projects in Numbers that my Calendar is set to open every morning at 7am, at the start of my shift. Because of this, I can keep track of what I’ve been working on, and be reminded if anything needs my attention (because you can guarantee the staff on the shop floor won’t bother reporting any issues if documentation isn’t working…). Of course, it’s not that simple; Calendar runs an Automator script that triggers a Shortcut that opens the app, but it works.

I also have a list in Pages of stuff that I need to remember. Not a to do list, as such, more just reminders to drink water, to take deep breaths every now and then, and the occasional saying that I’ve liked that’s spoken to me at that moment. That also opens automatically at 7am so I don’t forget to open it myself.

They’re silly things, but really important to me, and have really helped me to focus my attention and actually finish projects.

I’m pretty pleased with my automation that plays BBC 6Music on my iPhone at a set time each morning (as a wake up alarm) then automatically sends the audio to my HopePod mini and sets the volume level. It’s a nice way to wake up to the radio each day.

My wife and I were planning our wedding. Everything was paid from our own pockets. No help from parents or family. It wasn’t like they weren’t there, just wanted to do it ourselves since it’s our wedding.

By the time we’ve booked the venue, catering, photographer, budgeting clothing & decorations, we had no money to hire a DJ. And if we did, we didn’t want some “Top 40” DJ (we’re from the alternative subculture)

I rented some audio equipment, hooked it up to my MacBook, and used iTunes as the DJ. I’ve made a few playlists based on the wedding’s schedule. One playlist for the dinner, one playlist for the “walking down the aisle” moment, one playlist for dancing/post-ceremony. Having the playlists allows me to “play and forget” I’ve had certain songs setup at the end of the playlists in case we’ve overran a certain wedding function and I’ll know the playlist is near the end (most of the playlists were loaded with hours of songs so I wouldn’t have to worry) The walking down the aisle song was on it’s own playlist with the length trimmed down to how long it would take my wife to walk down the aisle (the song would just fade out & nothing else would be playing) It worked out pretty well, with me changing the playlist a few times. All MacBook sounds were turned off and Do Not Disturb was on to avoid unwanted notifications. It was connected to a public wifi (provided by my ISP) if I needed to do any remote controlling or downloading additional songs.

Safari + sponsorblock to airplay YouTube videos to the TV without needing some third party app like smarttubenext on the TV or logging into YouTube premium.

No ads and skipping sponsors with just no extra steps and no need for any other apps is nice. Especially since I don’t even have the YouTube app installed.