I’d like to create a shortcut to allow me to block schedule tasks in relation to a future deadline, i.e. if I have a presentation scheduled for Monday I’d like to block off time on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a couple of weeks before to research as well as a subsequent brainstorming block and finally a block to draft the actual presentation.
Ideally these blocks would be based upon the final presentation date.
Any ideas?
I do something like this, but I think it’s more manual than you’re looking for.
How would the Shortcut know how many blocks to put on your calendar? Are there known amounts for the activities you’re thinking of, such that you can specify several patterns for different activity types?
Don’t forget that you would also have to account for the calendar having pre-existing events that could conflict (meetings, holidays, appointments). What would be done in those circumstances? What takes priority and what rescheduling would be required as a result?
Scheduling can be a complex beast. It requires clarity on the rules to apply down to every edge case to be truly effective.
I have a few Shortcuts which allow me to block schedule my week, but my goal is this just puts the big pieces of the puzzle on the table - I then open up my calendar and move them around properly to fit. If your calendar is mostly empty then you can probably nail the scheduling every time, but I find that even though I could program logic to figure this out it doesn’t allow for the element of “I would like to do X before Y” that only I can provide.
Here’s what I ended up with. After the initial question that sets where you want the events created you’ll be prompted each time with 2 questions 1) sermon/presentation topic and 2) presentation date. With that info it create 3 study sessions, 1 outlining session, and 3 writing sessions.
My preparation time for sermons and lessons are vital to my work as a minister so they have high priority each week. I also benefit from the ability to drag and drop time slots when necessary, which lowers my concern about scheduling for the exact right time.
Let me know what you think!
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/90836ca4adbe4e5d8f743ec3d8990e8b