51 Comments
User's avatar
Jenny Ouyang's avatar

This is awesome! It’s basically a full Make-style automation workflow, running on a phone, and free. Love it!

TechTiff's avatar

Thank you, Jenny! That’s exactly the vibe! It’s like a mini Make.com… but make it ✨iPhone-native✨ and stupid simple to set up. You can even drop API keys in these and have them run some seriously sophisticated workflows!

Stuart Wild's avatar

Like others, I find shortcuts confusing. I have a colleague who, if you call him when he’s unavailable, automatically sends a detailed text message reply back with information and other contact details. He says it's done with shortcuts, but Perplexity tells me there is no way it can be done. If anyone knows how to do it I’d be grateful.

TechTiff's avatar

Hi Stuart! This is a great idea for a shortcut - you'll want to build it from Shortcuts in the "Automation" tab, and set the shortcut trigger to "When I get a Text and I am in "Do Not Disturb" (or other focus mode you select)" then have it reply to the text with any message. You can even customize it based on your contacts - like a family member might get one message and your boss gets a different one.

I actually built a custom GPT who is a Shortcut specialist and can help if you have questions while building this - drop screenshots in and let my specialist help you automate that process: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-684b053df8b0819180b0ccae01c2d195-flowfix-your-shortcut-helper

Stuart Wild's avatar

Thanks. Could it also respond to missed calls? My colleague’s one responds when someone calls and leaves a voicemail? We are both doctors, so are often on ‘do not disturb ‘ but like to give missed callers some directions/info. Responding to missed callswas specifically the bit that Perplexity said was not possible.

TechTiff's avatar

Yes absolutely!

Joe Mills's avatar

Just curious...trying to run repurposer. I'm getting an action issue on both my Macbook and iPhone re: ChatGPT. Not a "Shortcuts" guru at this point lol. What did I do wrong?

TechTiff's avatar

Joe thank you for trying the shortcut, sorry it's not working correctly! try chatting my FlowFix, my GPT who can assist with Shortcut troubleshooting: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-684b053df8b0819180b0ccae01c2d195-flowfix-your-shortcut-helper

Michael Bridges's avatar

OMGosh what great stuff handed out to all of us.

Boom goes the dynamite

🤯

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

If it’s saying “action not found” maybe it needs to be reconnected manually. You can tap the three dots on the Shortcut to see all the steps, usually you’ll spot where it’s breaking.

If that doesn’t do the trick, @Tiff is the real guru here

The Old Grey Thinker's avatar

God there is some work gone into this well done!

Karen Spinner's avatar

Lots of interesting ideas here! The Notes to Notion shortcut is something I definitely want to try!

The batch grading of essays via ChatGPT, however, gives me pause. While teachers are overwhelmed, I think an important part of their work is providing thoughtful, nuanced feedback to new writers. And, because LLMs are non-deterministic, students could easily question and appeal any AI-generated grades they receive.

At least where I live, teachers are responsible for a lot of administrative work, like assembling school supply lists (including product info), tracking classroom supplies, collecting fees for field trips, etc. This may be a better entry point for AI/automation…

Ashish's avatar

These are cool shortcuts. I was wondering today that why no one have tried integrating ChatGPT in shortcuts yet. Looking forward for awesome use cases.

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

Thanks to @TechTiff for the magic! Any specific use case you’re looking to automate with GPT?

Ashish's avatar

Delete all Spammy texts, delete duplicate photos, delete heavy videos, notify apps not used in last x days to delete, turn screen into greyscale upon overusing of social media, etc

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

awesome!!! @TechTiff new post ideas?

TechTiff's avatar

Oh yes! And I LOVE the greyscale idea, that’s brilliant!!

Karo (Product with Attitude)'s avatar

So good! Daria and Tiff, I seriously appreciate how you laid this out. And how you continuously to democratize automation ideas.

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

Thanks, Karo - appreciate you reading!

making automation feel approachable (and useful) is exactly what we hoped for.

Sae Abiola's avatar

This is truly beautiful, Daria. Thank you for pouring your heart into this and sharing such an amazing piece with us.

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

Thanks, Sae! Full credit goes to @TechTiff for the awesome shortcuts!

Marylee Pangman, Author's avatar

Could you, TechTIFF make this shortcut for us? Shortcut #2: Content Strategy Generator (Never Have "What Should I Post?" Anxiety Again)

TechTiff's avatar

Of course I can! This is a great idea and I am very excited about the ways you can create shortcuts for this!

Marylee Pangman, Author's avatar

Wonderful!! I answered your question in the other thread. Thank you!!

Jen Phillips April's avatar

This whole “shortcuts” thing is confusing to me. I went down a rabbit hole with it a few weeks ago when Tiff had written a post about it and I got frustrated because I could figure out how to set it up.

I’ll give it another go but I honestly don’t have much faith in the content repurposer. Have you tried it?

TechTiff's avatar

Jen I hope this set is more helpful! Please send me a DM if you run into any issues - I have a more streamlined version as well that just looks at your Substack RSS feed!

Jen Phillips April's avatar

Thanks! I’ll give it a try.

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

It’s been confusing to me too. It helped me though to look at the step by step logic and try to understand it.

The good part is you can just tap the link and the Shortcut gets added straight to your phone, without setting it up yourself.

And yes, I’ve tried them all and have them running now. The Content Repurposer is actually one of my favorites. I use it more for messy thoughts or ideas, not necessarily finished posts, and it polishes it into something way better.

Michael Bridges's avatar

There’s a link and I can add it to my iPhone?

🤯

Hope I’m not acting uncool?

This stream of comments is great. Thank you again

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

Not uncool at all, Michael!!

Each of the 5 shortcuts in the post has a “Get Shortcut” button, so you don’t have to DIY anything. Just tap, and it adds straight to your phone.

And if you want to explore more, @TechTiff has even more shortcuts you can try out on her Substack.

Jen Phillips April's avatar

That’s how I use ChatGPT. But I’ll check it out.

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

That's true! the difference is that now you don't need to go 1) into ChatGPT, 2) paste the post/idea, 3) write a prompt every time so it creates the post for you.

You just 1) click the shortcut, 2) paste the post/idea -> done.

Michael Bridges's avatar

My evening is going to be fun

TechTiff's avatar

I also made a Shortcut Assistant GPT who should be able to assist with troubleshooting or errors on these: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-684b053df8b0819180b0ccae01c2d195-flowfix-your-shortcut-helper

Shipra Bhatt's avatar

I need to learn Notion ,🙄🙈

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

Getting started with Notion is pretty easy. What do you need it for? Is it about the first automation?

Shipra Bhatt's avatar

I have tried it two times...but i just end up getting confused and unable to understand the platform. what's the best 'dummies guide to notion' video i can watch?? ;)

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

I actually learned it through trial and error, so I don’t have a specific tutorial video to recommend right now.

But here’s what I’d suggest:

1) Go to Gemini AI Studio → https://aistudio.google.com/apps

2) In the left sidebar, click “Stream”

3) Then click “Share screen”

4) Open Notion, and while your screen is shared, you can ask Gemini whatever questions you have. It’s great for troubleshooting / learning things in real time.

You can also do voice + screen sharing with ChatGPT, but only on mobile (as far as I know). On desktop, it doesn’t let me share my screen, but that might just be a regional thing , and the feature might be available in other countries.

I use this method all the time to troubleshoot stuff. It’s so much faster than watching long tutorials, cause I just learn by doing, while getting help with what I need in the moment.

That said, YouTube probably has plenty of helpful videos too!!

Jen Phillips April's avatar

Notion was HARD for me! But I finally learned it after multiple months.

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

I'm curious - was it something in particular you were trying to achieve that you found difficult? or using the platform overall?

Jen Phillips April's avatar

Everything. I had a hard time getting a hang of it. It does a lot and isn’t intuitive.

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

Got it. I know what you mean, it's very common with platforms that have been here for a long time already and have a whole lot of features and things they can do. Been there.

I'll leave here once again something I shared with Shipra. I think it might be useful, since you were also planning to try the AI voice chat feature anyway -> so this might be a great occasion to do so.

"1) Go to Gemini AI Studio → https://aistudio.google.com/apps

2) In the left sidebar, click “Stream”

3) Then click “Share screen”

4) Open Notion, and while your screen is shared, you can ask Gemini whatever questions you have. It’s great for troubleshooting / learning things in real time.

You can also do voice + screen sharing with ChatGPT, but only on mobile (as far as I know). On desktop, it doesn’t let me share my screen, but that might just be a regional thing , and the feature might be available in other countries."

Michael Bridges's avatar

I love how you just dropped the knowledge so casually.

Boom goes the dynamite 🤯💥

Jen Phillips April's avatar

Ah, sounds useful. I use chat constantly for tech support but this sounds more efficient than my method of sending screenshots.

Luan Doan's avatar

Can’t even explain - this article is so awesome and practical.

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

Thanks Luan, glad it's useful!

Marylee Pangman, Author's avatar

I got an error on the Repurposing shortcut. Combinetoolbelt.timeout error on the Ask GPT step.

TechTiff's avatar

Yes, sometimes I get this one too if GPT isn't running in the background. frustrating, but awesome you figured it out! 💪

Marylee Pangman, Author's avatar

I thought - hmmm maybe!! 😊

Marylee Pangman, Author's avatar

Ok!! I had to make sure GPT was open on my phone!! All good. 👍🏼