Twenty-five automation ideas for your iPhone. Every one uses the native Shortcuts app — no third-party apps required, no coding, no subscription.
Morning automations
- Read the weather aloud — triggers at your wake time, speaks current conditions for your location
- Brief today's calendar — reads your first three events aloud after the weather
- Start a coffee timer — 4-minute timer starts automatically with your morning alarm
- Log wake-up time to Health — records your actual wake time, not your alarm time
- Morning mood check-in — asks how you feel on a 1–5 scale, logs to Apple Health Mindfulness
Work and focus automations
- Focus mode from calendar — enables "Work" Focus when a calendar event starts, disables it when the event ends
- DND when laptop opens — triggers when your Mac's Bluetooth connects to your iPhone nearby
- Commute podcast — opens your podcast app and plays the next episode when you leave home location
- Meeting prep notification — 5 minutes before each calendar event, opens the meeting link if there is one
- Distraction reminder — when you open a social media app, shows a notification with how long you planned to spend there
Health and fitness automations
- Water intake tap — home screen button that logs 250ml to Apple Health in one tap
- Workout start log — timestamps a workout start to a notes file when you tap it at the gym
- Caffeine log — one-tap log of a coffee (95mg) to Apple Health Nutrition
- Hourly stand reminder — notification every hour between 9am and 6pm if you haven't stood up yet (checks Health data)
- End-of-day health summary — at 9pm, reads back your steps, water intake, and logged mood for the day
Evening and sleep automations
- Bedtime dim — reduces brightness to 20% and volume to 30% at your target bedtime
- Sleep DND — enables Do Not Disturb from bedtime until your alarm, silently
- Sleep timer — pauses all audio after a set number of minutes when you fall asleep listening to something
- Log bedtime — records the time you started your sleep routine to Apple Health Sleep Analysis
- Next-day prep — at 9pm, opens tomorrow's calendar and your task list side by side
Practical everyday automations
- Arrive home — turn on Wi-Fi — automatically reconnects to home network when you enter your home location
- Low battery protocol — enables Low Power Mode and sends a remind-to-charge notification at 20%
- Expense log — asks amount and category, appends to a running note with timestamp
- Send location when leaving work — sends your ETA home to a contact automatically when you leave the work location
- Weekly review prompt — every Friday at 6pm, opens your notes, calendar, and task list in sequence
How to pick which one to build first
Look at the list above and identify the one task you do every day that feels like unnecessary friction. Start there. A five-minute automation that eliminates a thirty-second daily friction pays for itself in a week and runs indefinitely.
After the first one works, the second is faster. The third is faster still. The pattern clicks and you stop thinking about what you can automate — you start noticing everything that could be.
Skip the build time — download the ready versions
Many of the automations above are available as free iCloud links. Install any of them in two taps.
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