If This Then That... Do More With Your Apps And Devices

Do you ever wish you could clone yourself?

I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to streamline, be more efficient, make better use of my time, and get more done without adding hours to the day. It seems impossible. There are always emails to respond to, Twitter feeds to check, weather reports to look at, photos to catalog. Now that I have found IFTTT, I almost feel like there are two of me:)

IFTTT stands for If This Then That and it is a free platform, launched in beta back in 2010,  that helps you do more with your apps and devices. It uses a formula called an "applet" that connects a service (everything from email, Twitter, Facebook, Time Magazine, Fitbit, etc.) to a "trigger" or a condition and then another service. I know it's tricky to understand at first but this service has amazing possibilities. I worked with a teacher who was teaching an outdoor adventure-type of physical education class. He wanted a collection of his students' photos on their camping trip and he wanted a way for them to comment and share. He had them post to Instagram using a specific hashtag he created. He used IFTTT to automatically upload the photos with that hashtag to his class blog. AMAZING!

Here are 5 examples of applets that already exist that you might find interesting.

1. If you get an email with an attachment, then it will save to your Google drive. This applet can be

helpful when you are trying to organize attachments that you get via email. This applet will automatically save those attachments for you. Once the applet is active, you don't need to do anything except enjoy your great new organization system!

2.  Sometimes the best information comes not from the conference, but from the tweets sent out using the conference hashtag. But who has time in the day to load, 

look at, and read all of those tweets. They come fast and furious once the conference gets going. This applet will automatically load tweets with a specific hashtag to a Google spreadsheet. You can look at them when you have time or just save the spreadsheet for future reference. 

3. I happen to love quotes! I use them in my classes with students and I share them with friends and colleagues. I don't always have time to look at or save the quote of the day from BrainyQuote. This applet automatically archives quotes for you in a Google spreadsheet which is automatically saved in your Google drive.

4. Not sure what to do with all of those photos on your camera roll? They are taking up space on your phone. This applet will automatically upload your camera roll to your Google drive. Automatic storage solution! I also happen to take a lot of screenshots on my phone. There is another applet (bonus) that will save those screenshots into their own folder. 

5. This is one of my favorites. Every day at 6pm, or whatever time you specify, the weather report will be automatically added to your calendar. Never get stuck without your umbrella again!

Ok, hopefully you get the idea here. These are just a very few of the many, many applets that IFTTT has to offer. If you don't see what you are looking for you can easily create your own. IFTTT walks you through how to make your own applet by connecting your services and devices by a trigger. If you are someone who uses any social media, there are many applets to help you streamline those posts. There are applets for voice assistants like Alexa or OK Google. I highly suggest that you take a look at the applet collections by clicking here. 

Are you using IFTTT? Post in the comments below and let me know what applets you have activated.