frozen octopus

Every morning I respect my brain/mind by making an Americano, putting on a jazz record, and writing 200 words of free writing. It is a really nice way to fade into a day instead of reading some dire news or sitting down and laboring right away on tasks.

So morning is pleasant. But evening not so much. I really need to get a night version of that happening. Some sort of fade out to match the morning fade in.

Reading seems like a good evening bookend for morning writing. Music writing also seems like a good thing to schedule. Like making the equivalent of 200 words in sound somehow.

Don't know yet but this is a thing that is brewing. It took a bit to become muscle memory but the 200-word morning writing took for me. Seems reproducible at other times of the day for sure.

I got a shortcut setup that I run daily that I am really into right now. It is for a daily review that I run first thing when I wake up. It sets me up a little better for the day, which I always need a little helping nudge with. When I get to the end of the shortcut, I have a rough list of where I am at and kind of where I need to be heading. The list is saved in Drafts but could go anywhere though.

The shortcut starts by getting the upcoming weather.

Next is a list of prompts that asks me various questions like these. There are more and I don't need to answer them if I don't want to:

• What was the very last thing you were working on yesterday?
• Do you need to "nudge" anyone on anything?
• Is there anything you noticed yesterday that you haven't logged as a task yet?
• Are you missing any content needed to finish a milestone today?
• Are there any messages or emails from anyone that you read but didn't actually "capture"?

Then the shortcut grabs all upcoming events in Calendar for the next seven days.

After that, the shortcut grabs all upcoming things for the next seven days in my to-do app.

The shortcut then uses the Apple Intelligence "Use model" action set to on-device. There is a prompt telling it to tidy up all this info into a plan for the day. Also, have it set up to add a next action for tasks where possible.

What I get back is a nice overview of what I need to do for the day. It isn't perfect, but it is really fun.