5 Powerful iOS Shortcuts to Automate Your Daily Tasks

Unlocking the Power of iOS Shortcuts

If you’re an iPhone or iPad user, you’re sitting on a powerful automation tool that most people underutilize. The Shortcuts app can save you hours each week by automating repetitive tasks, connecting different apps, and creating powerful workflows triggered by a single tap or even automatically.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through 5 of my most-used iOS Shortcuts that have genuinely transformed my daily productivity.

What Are iOS Shortcuts?

iOS Shortcuts are mini-programs that can connect multiple actions across your apps and content to accomplish tasks with a single tap or voice command. Think of them as custom commands you can create to make your device work smarter for you.

Shortcut #1: Morning Briefing

What it does: This shortcut runs automatically when you stop your morning alarm, giving you a spoken summary of:

• Today’s weather forecast
• Your calendar events for the day
• Top news headlines
• Travel time to your first appointment

How to Set It Up

1. Open the Shortcuts app and create a new shortcut
2. Add a “Get Current Weather” action
3. Add a “Find Calendar Events” action for today’s date
4. Add a “Get Articles from RSS Feed” action with your preferred news source
5. Add a “Get Travel Time” action between home and your first appointment
6. Use “Speak Text” actions to have your device read the information
7. Finally, go to Automation tab → Create Personal Automation → Alarm → When alarm is stopped → Run your shortcut

Here’s the shortcut you can import directly:

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/123456abcdef

Shortcut #2: Meeting Mode

What it does: With one tap, this shortcut:

• Turns on Do Not Disturb
• Opens your note-taking app to a new note
• Adjusts screen brightness
• Launches the meeting app (Zoom, Teams, etc.)
• Starts a timer for the meeting duration

Implementation Steps

1. Add a "Set Do Not Disturb" action to ON
2. Add a "Create Note" action
3. Add a "Set Brightness" action to 70%
4. Add an "Open App" action for your meeting app
5. Add a "Start Timer" action
6. Create a second part of the shortcut that runs when the timer ends:
   - Turn off Do Not Disturb
   - Save the note to a "Meeting Notes" folder

Shortcut #3: Document Scanner & Processor

What it does: This shortcut turns your phone into a powerful document processing system:

• Takes a photo or selects an existing one
• Enhances it for document clarity
• Converts it to PDF
• Performs OCR (text recognition)
• Gives options to share, save, or extract text

The Magic Behind It

This shortcut combines the Camera app, Image processing, and powerful OCR capabilities:

1. "Take Photo" or "Select Photo" action (with menu choice)
2. "Convert Image" with document enhancement
3. "Make PDF" action
4. "Extract Text from Image" action
5. "Show Menu" with options for next steps
6. Conditional actions based on menu selection

Shortcut #4: Expense Tracker

What it does: Makes expense tracking effortless:

• Takes a photo of your receipt
• Extracts the total amount and date
• Asks for category (food, transport, etc.)
• Adds the expense to a spreadsheet
• Saves the receipt image to a folder

Setting It Up with Your Spreadsheet

This shortcut works with any spreadsheet app that has URL callback functionality:

1. "Take Photo" action
2. "Extract Text from Image" with regular expression to find price
3. "Ask for Input" to categorize the expense
4. "Append to Spreadsheet" action
5. "Save File" action for the receipt image

You can customize the categories and fields based on your expense tracking needs.

Shortcut #5: Smart Home Evening Routine

What it does: With a single “Hey Siri, I’m home” command:

• Turns on specific lights
• Adjusts your thermostat
• Plays your favorite playlist
• Shows a menu of dinner options nearby
• Sets a reminder for anything you need to do tomorrow

Connecting Your Smart Home

This shortcut demonstrates the power of connecting iOS with HomeKit and other smart home systems:

1. "Control Home" actions for lights and thermostat
2. "Play Music" action with your preferred playlist
3. "Search Local Businesses" for restaurants
4. "Create Reminder" with input prompt

How to Take These Shortcuts to the Next Level

The real power comes when you start combining these shortcuts with:

1. Time or location-based triggers: Run shortcuts automatically when you arrive home
2. Focus modes: Different shortcuts for work, home, or travel
3. NFC tags: Touch your phone to a tag to run a specific shortcut
4. Widgets: Place shortcut buttons on your home screen
5. Apple Watch: Run your most-used shortcuts from your wrist

Premium Shortcuts Bundle

Want to skip the setup and get 25 professionally designed shortcuts for productivity, smart home, health tracking, and content creation?

Check out my Premium iOS Shortcuts Bundle which includes:

• Ready-to-import shortcuts
• Video tutorials for customization
• Regular updates with new shortcuts
• Private community for shortcut sharing

Your Turn

What daily tasks would you like to automate with iOS Shortcuts? Let me know in the comments and I might feature custom solutions in my next post!

Stay tuned for my upcoming deep dive into using iOS Shortcuts with API calls to create truly powerful automations.