Big news! We launched a channel on IFTTT this week, and it opens up a bunch of different possibilities for using your RescueTime data with your favorite apps and devices.
If you’re unfamiliar, IFTTT stands for: “If This Then That”, is pronounced like: “GIFT”, and is a service that lets you take actions in one app in response to actions in another. Since you spend so much of your time plugged into your digital devices, there are a LOT of actions you can take.
IFTTT channels have two parts. The first are Triggers – things that happen in your app than can cause things to happen in others. Second are Actions – things that can respond to a Trigger in another app. The combination of a Trigger and an Action is called a Recipe.
The RescueTime IFTTT channel has four triggers…
…and two Actions.
You can connect our channel to any of the hundreds of other channels on IFTTT (although some of them make a lot more sense then others). IFTTT has channels for business apps, smartphones, social networks, even home automation devices.
The possibilities are nearly endless, but here are a few of the Recipes we really like:
Silence your phone while in a FocusTime session
Use Google Calendar to start a FocusTime session…
…or add a do-not-disturb note when FocusTime starts
Set up a productivity light
IFTTT has several channels that will let you control a light (or a set of lights). You can use the Recipes below with the Phillips Hue, ORBneXt, and Blink(1) channels.
Adjust your thermostat while in a FocusTime session
If you want to give yourself some extra motivation, set your Nest thermostat to something really comfortable either while you are in a FocusTime session, or after you’ve completed a few hours of productive work.
Use alerts to post messages to Slack
You can use RescueTime alerts as an automated way to humblebrag (or publicly shame yourself) to your coworkers.
Get a phone call whenever an alert is triggered
This one is super effective for getting me to stop working when it’s late at night. I have an alert set up for “more than 30 minutes of productive time between midnight and 4am”. When my phone rings in the middle of the night, that momentary “who the hell is calling me at 1am?!?!” feeling is the BEST way to knock me out of the workaholic hole I’ve fallen into.
Save daily summaries in a Google Sheet
This one is great if you just want to pull some specific data over time into a spreadsheet. It’s perfect for Quantified Self projects where you’re tracking one metric (say, hours of productive time) against another data source (like your daily exercise or sleep).
We’re particularly excited about the FocusTime Triggers and Actions, which let you tailor your FocusTime experience in some really powerful ways. You can read more on that over here.
What recipes have you come up with? Share your favorites in the comments!
Thanks for starting an IFTTT channel! Two requests already:
1) Please add a Weekly Summary trigger, as I’d like to send those to a Google sheet
2) Please add the Productivity Pulse to the daily and weekly summaries. That and total hours is what I look at.
Those are both great suggestions. I’ve added them to our list for the next iteration. Thanks!