One of my favorite shortcuts I made is the Weather Icon. It is a simple four step shortcut but it is so reusable in other shortcuts.

For example, I have a shortcut I run for when I greet my colleagues in the morning. It chooses a random salutation and runs the Weather Icon shortcut to get the weather.

Steps

1. Get current weather at Current Location
2. Get Condition from Weather Conditions
3. Dictionary w/ the Keys being the weather conditions (list below). Value is the actual emoji.
4. Get Value for Condition in Dictionary

Weather Conditions ¹

• Clear
• Mostly Sunny
• Sunny
• Cloudy
• Partly Cloudy
• Mostly Cloudy
• Rain
• Showers
• Thunderstorms
• Snow
• Hail
• Sleet
• Blowing Snow
• Fog
• Haze
• Dust
• Smoke
• Windy
• Tornado
• Hurricane
• Drizzle
• Overcast
• Freezing Rain
• Freezing Drizzle
• Flurries
• Hot
• Cold
• Blizzard
• Ice Pellets
• Sandstorm

¹ Not sure if this list is complete or not. Seems to be working though.

One thing I love lately is generating a word cloud in Obsidian from my morning writing sessions. There is a plugin for it called "Tag & Word Cloud" that generates a word cloud of my most commonly used words.

I run the plugin as a treat for getting a morning writing session done. For example, my list today is "show, tasks, things, let, words, need, time".

It's kind of like having a personal oracle.

You can add a token using the wysiwyg. That rules BUT watch out for one thing.

When you want to add your token, be sure you've clicked on the Source button.

If you don't click the Source button to add the token, the wysiwyg might add extra formatting code to the token. Which then makes the token broken. In my case, the wysiwyg adds a span tag to the token which breaks things.

Steps

1. Click Source.
2. Add your token.
3. Click Source again.
4. Click Save.
5. Stay rad.

The ¥100 store by our place has a party section. There are really small air pumps that people buy for filling balloons. They make perfect keyboard dust cleaners. Sure beats compressed air cans.

Ten years ago macbooks were perfect for winter because they heated up. Summer was kinda rough. Tokyo apartments have no central heat.

Now this laptop is like resting my hands on an icey piece of metal in winter. Summer is nice.

My note using voice dictation in at a noisy show says "Make candles out of old bananas". Took me a minute or two to remember that I wanted to make handles out of old bandanas last night.

Cleaning

The end of year in Japan means it is （大掃除）time at our place (and everyone elses too). The big clean to refresh the place for the new year. My plan is to set a timer for 20 minute intervals. Twenty minutes computer time and then twenty minutes clean time. Makes it a little more fun. Throw on some music and get things in order. My mantra for the day is "what is it? where does it go?" then wipe and put it in its spot. We have a small place so it isn't so daunting.

Computer

At the end of the year, I think back on what was a work thing that could be down easier/lazier for the next year. Then I get the fancy app that solves the problem as a self present. The rules are it need to be/feel like an Apple app and can't have a monthly subscription. Past examples are apps like MindNode for mind mapping, Text Sniper for copying text, and Name Mangler for bulk file editing. Each one makes getting things done less of a chore. 

This year I got Retrobatch for bulk image editing. Stoked to play with it and get some workflows happening. Just typing this has my mind planning one for responsive images. Stoked!

It's weird how janky Shortcuts is at getting what you are currently listening to. I've never gotten the actual Music shortcuts to work on desktop. There is an option for getting what is currently playing with a Shazam shortcut but that doesn't give you the album name.

Shortcuts does run Applescript though. I did a little searching and found the script for getting what you are listening to. Very cool how quickly it grabs the result.

tell application "Music"
    if player state is playing then
        set currentTrack to current track
        set albumName to album of currentTrack
        set artistName to artist of currentTrack
        set albumYear to year of currentTrack
        set albumGenre to genre of currentTrack
        return "Currently listening to: \"" & albumName & "\" by " & artistName & " (" & albumYear & ", " & albumGenre & ")"
    else
        return "Music is not currently playing."
    end if
end tell

Getting this working is inspiring me to use Applescript more with Shortcuts in the future.

I have an  Apple Shortcut I run every morning cleverly named "Morning". When it is clicked, it sets me up for a new day. It chooses random dumbbell exercises. It chooses a random drum rudiment to focus on for the day. It chooses a random grammar pattern to study in Japanese for the day. It also prompts me to write one sentence for a One Sentence Journal.

Everyone's routine is different, so yours will be different. The shortcut recipe I lean on for this is this:

1. Add a text file to Shortcuts.
2. Fill the file with a bunch of things you want to randomly select from.
3. Put each thing on a separate line.
   In a new shortcut, add a Get file from folder action and point it to your text file.
4. Add a Split text by new lines action.
5. Add a Get Item From List action and set it to random.

The text files are so light and easy to mess around with. You can create an infinite amount of them. I use this pattern a lot to randomize daily things so notifications don't become monotonous.

Set up a Pomodoro timer called “Mini-Tomato" that is 10 minutes cleaning up files on the laptop and 10 minutes cleaning up the place.

Unnecessary, inefficient, and fun.