Created Split PDF – I love it!

Did it.

Again – Im so proud as I knew and used it for a long time! :)

I scheduled the accounting software that my firm uses to open at 5 PM daily as a reminder to complete my timesheet.

Done. In fact, I’ve done a couple of them. Thanks!

Did it! Thanks~ Diary thing is cool

Did it – thanks!

Done

Done.

I’ll have to work on this one with my new work computer. I couldn’t locate the commands to open the apps I wanted. I’ll find the executable files and try again. Also want to investigate using the event trigger.

Day 3 done

Now I can probably uninstall Skitch.

Couldn’t do it because the feature on Windows 10 that I wanted to use was marked as deprecated.

Yeah, I need to think more about my use cases for this. I “know” I should be batching my email, but since I work in sales I tend to leave my Outlook open all the time. I also hear that I should be journaling, but I haven’t started that habit either. Anyway, I pinned Task Scheduler to my taskbar in Windows, so that it is only a click away if I think of something. Or maybe I should create a keyboard shortcut for it? :)

I’ll give this a go and see if the IT dept allow me to do it.

Had to catchup on video but now done. Easy.

Done- daily report automated to run via Task Scheduler

Update: I persisted even though I don’t have Mojave, which required searching online for Automator with El Capitan (!). I created an automation that takes the selected images and creates one PDF. Done!

My mac is still on High Sierra, my IT guys will not okay the update! So not quick actions for me :-(

The Diary Prompt for Windows is life changing! I just set it up to open Outlook, and open internet browser to the three windows that are part of my morning KPI review routine.

Done have never used Automator before

Did it!

Done

Actually had already done this one before rewatching

I did it!

Finished! I remember seeing the feature highlighted before but never gave it a try.

Done!

Done!

Done!

Done!

Complete! :)

Done! Nice and easy!

Did this yesterday, just didn’t comment here.

Annotated invoice in PDF. It was easy

Day 3 done today – maybe a day late.

Done! Really cool tip – I’ve sent a few friends to follow the challenge too.

Done.
Attempted to “Task Schedule” Outlook e-mail check in for 10am & 2pm – locating the Outlook application was the trick.

Completed this yesterday, just didn’t get it logged here that I had created the scheduled task.

Done!

Since I spend 10 hours a day at work on my computer there, this will be handy. Home is a morning thing so I set up a diary prompt for 5am.

could do the Journal prompt but got an error message when I tried to set up a message

I did it, got er done late, but I got it done

Done.

Could not get this to work, but I am not giving up. Just need to wait for software downloads and my S L O W internet to finish.

Done

Completed. Annotated a photo and split a .pdf and added to the Quick Actions. Already thinking of some other QA to add….

Hoorah, seems I still can run the (from the run… function) , so I could start the schedular from there (as long as our IT department lets me……)
So with a workaround mission accomplished 💪🏻

Done. A nice wee document markup.

Done!

Windows, Done!

Done. My browser now opens every day at 12:00 am opening my main Trello board to re-focus on the tasks I set out to do.

And I pinned the task scheduler app to the Windows start menu. ✌

Done!

I did it! I realized that annotate can mean “combine PDFs” ;)

Done!

I did it! I annotated png and PDF with a Markup and Split PDF quick action, respectively. Thank you!

Okay. Done.

This is great! Love quick markup on Mac

done

Done. Set on my personal computer. Had some issues trying to set it on the work computer.

Done and done

Hmm… this challenge turned out to be a little tricky to implement. Primarily due to the fact that I already had an automated reminder in place prompting journal entries, but my system relied heavily on an interactive GUI powered by AutoHotKey scripts (at the time I created this script I was attempting to replicate a quick and dirty “nvALT for Windows” type of journaling workflow) rather than a simple system task scheduled to launch a blank text editor.

At first I thought it would be a simple enough matter, comment out the code that triggers at specific time intervals and just create a scheduled task to take over that function instead. But it turns out that Task Scheduler can’t/doesn’t launch items with the *.ahk file extension for whatever reason. Strange, but not entirely unprecedented. After all, back when I had a Mac I recall being unable to automate launching some of my applescripts unless I explicitly converted those into applets. Turns out a similar solution was called for here, except Windows doesn’t deal with *.app file extensions but rather *.exe

But even after compiling my Journal.ahk to Journal.exe, launching it via Task Scheduler would repeatedly throw up alerts onscreen asking me to confirm what program to use to run this file and I had to keep manually selecting the “keep using AutoHotKey” checkbox. Again, a bit bizarre considering that .ahk files are automatically associated to run with AHK, so intuitively you feel like a simple compiled_ahk_script.exe should continue that association, but here yet another (admittedly minor, yet annoyingly repetitive) complication arose.

I suppose at this point I should’ve just given up on trying to force this to work. I could just as easily have created a simple task to launch an empty text editor and commented here that I completed the challenge… but I already HAD a working solution! I just couldn’t get it to work with Task Scheduler nicely for whatever reason lol. So maybe call it tenacity or perhaps call it stubbornness or call it whatever else you will, but after pulling my hair out and some more super-sleuthing online I finally came up with the workaround of putting quotes around my Task Scheduler entry and connecting my actual Journal automation script to the executable for AutoHotKey itself… and if that doesn’t make sense, simply put, I had to do this number: “C:\Program Files\AutoHotkey\AutoHotkey.exe D:\jvtho\Dropbox\Apps\Editorial\Journal.ahk”

So now I can get rid of the Journal.exe I compiled earlier, which is great since I prefer to get hands on and tinker with optimizing my script once every few weeks or so and having to recompile an executable copy each time would’ve been a chore. Just before commenting on here I also realized that I could drop the quotes and just paste the Journal.ahk script as the argument parameter in Task Scheduler once AutoHotkey.exe is launched from my Program Files folder. So there, after much trial and error I finally completed the challenge! I’ll be honest though… I most likely will just unfreeze the segment of code I commented out which handles the timed launching of Sublime Text whenever I get around to tinkering with the script next. Till then, I’ll let Task Scheduler handle it for the next few weeks and see how it goes, but it just makes more sense not to bifurcate how I automate my journaling triggers, with the script now only handling the keyboard combo that aspect whereas Task Scheduler now handles the timing trigger.

In any case, that’s how I completed this challenge to augment my existing workflow that automatically launched my preferred text editor of choice, loaded with my date/time stamped journal entries in the sidebar, before offering a GUI prompt onscreen for Title entry, tags, etc… by literally still doing all of that, except now having it launched via Task Scheduler rather than directly from my Journal.ahk script :)

Done. Diary prompt is made.

Used Markup Quick Action on a PDF on Mac. I did not know about this before this challenge!

Done. Tried it on iOS as well. :)

Done!

Added a task for entering the days ministry notes.

I created a scheduled task on Windows.

Did it!

Done!

Well…that was certainly easy. I didn’t have a use for the document I annotated today, but I’m sure this will work great in the near future. I’ve always opened up PDF files in Preview and annotated from there, so I’m excited to reduce the number of steps needed to get this done quicker.

Done! That was certainly easy and convenient. I knew of annotation via iOS, but not on the Mac. I have a feeling this will come in ultra handy in the next few weeks.

You’re right didn’t know I could this so easily. I always opened PDFs in preview. Such a useful tip.

Completed the 3rd day challenge. I really did not know about this useful hidden feature. Thanks for sharing.

Done! Also, ended up creating another quick action to extract highlights that I usually do in my PDFs. Hooray!

Annotated pdf’s. Good. I do this on a regular basis. Automator is also good. Could not find specific workflows that are applicable to me. However, I see how this works and will be thinking about what I can automate through Automator.

Use quick actions all the time to annotate images. In this case I had an application screenshot with errors in the GUI used the annotation to highlight the label that needs to be changed

Finished.

Created a Diary Prompt. I am toying with the idea of an automated email to remind me to complete my workday shutdown every day also!

Done. Set up outlook to open at 9 and 1. Having a hard time trying not to look at emails

Done. I set a Task Scheduler to do “Planner Review” at 4PM to review the task in Simplified Planner and checkoff the completed and set up for the next day. Love this!!!

Done

Did the diary prompt even when I don’t need it. Can’t think of anything useful for me right now but the time will come… Have to check out in detail what possible is. Certainly an interesting tool. Thanks.

Done!!

Complete!

Cool, implemented on Mac

Completed on Mac. These new found apps are really great.

This 5 day challenge of breaking things down into each of the elements we learnt about on Monday has been great to clarify where I still have gaps in knowledge and ensuring that I can practice applying the knowledge several times to help it become embedded. The reinforcement of listening to the short clips more than once has been helpful.

I also learned about the use of chapters when viewing the material which I had not been aware of.

Thanks so much for this free guide to personal automation and the associated challenge to help us move from guided practice to independent practice. So many high fee online courses fail to include these two important elements to ensure transformation can take place.

Jeremy – you can always use the search option to find notepad.exe – it’s a little easier and faster than spelunking through the file system.

I’ve set this up. I use Windows for work and for my family computer at home; however, my office computer is Linux. I’m currently looking for counterparts in Linux – it takes a little more searching and setup, but so far, so good.

Done!

I actually use OneNote as my digital “brain” … so I just created a prompt that will launch OneNote when I start the computer.

Done.

Done – easy peasy lemon squeezy

Loving the “convert to pdf” feature for the image files; I didn’t even know we could do that. That is going to save me tons of time.

Done! Can’t wait till tomorrow!!

Yup, did it. I suppose that the real power comes from modifying these to my needs. Sadly, the quick menu is not appearing in third-party apps.

Handy tip for automator usage – worth some more exploration (the sample is interesting, but not something I expect I’d use all the time).

I’m a big fan of Hazel (as covered elsewhere) and use it to automate a whole load of folder watches to manage downloads / music / video intelligently. Fun, and useful!

Done! I annoted an image and created also a quick action to split pdf files.

Great tip!

Looks like we are repeating the same video from day 1, 2 and 3…. I did the exercises on day 1….

Done.

I created a little Windows Forms app that shows the message “Don’t forget your journal entry” that will pop up every week day at 4:00PM.

Done. Thanks for the tip!

Ok, I have to say this feature is the coolest! I listened to a podcast a while back on listening to good focus music. So I have set up Spotify to automatically open for me every day. It sounds so simple but I often find myself struggling to take that one extra step to open spotify every morning as I sit down at my desk and see how much other hot priorities I have during the day. This will help set the tone for my day! Love it!

This is the similar video.
And I already set up the Diary prompt Task.
Awesome.
Thanks

I have used markup before but being able to split pages is really useful.

done

Done!

Great tip. I would like to see examples of other things to schedule

Done, some great ideas here.

Done both!

I’ve actually been using the Diary Prompt since Monday! :) Great stuff!

Done it’s nice to have a new quick action for PDFs

This is great. Setup a new quick action for PDF document. Perfect for quick changes.

done! thanks!

Done! Thank you !

Done! :-)

Done :)

Done!

I split a PDF — never knew about this feature before! Thank you;-)

I just did a markup on an image. I have wanted to do this for so long and can’t imagine I’ve spent over 10 years owning a Mac without knowing this! THANK YOU!

Done!

Did it, Also Like the customazation of the quick actions possible for example split PDF.. great to mention you can do more then only the below shown options

Done and done! (:

Notepad set to open at 4 pm

I’m not a daily diary/journaling person, so this particular automation exercise was purely for practice. It will be more useful at work for specific weekly tasks.

I have a common workflow that involves resizing images to a certain size, then opening them with ImageOptim, which shrinks them down further. Used to run it as a shell command but it’s even easier as a quick action from Finder.

Thank you

Done! It took me some time to find the notepad executable, but I got there eventually.