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The app

Siri and Shortcuts

Add a task, log a habit or hear your day without opening HourLife.

HourLife's 7 actions are in Siri, Spotlight and the Shortcuts app as soon as the app is installed. There is nothing to set up: say one of the 25 phrases below. Each names HourLife, so Siri knows which app you mean.

What you can say

Start with “Hey Siri”, or press and hold the side button. Pick an action, then a phrase, to see what Siri says back. A highlighted word is yours to change: the name of one of your habits, or the day.

Capture to Inbox

Puts a thought in your Inbox without opening the app.

Say

  1. You:

    Capture in HourLife

  2. Siri:

    What do you want to capture?

  3. You:

    Ask Sam about the Lisbon dates

  4. Siri:

    Captured to your Inbox.

In HourLife · Inbox

  • Ask Sam about the Lisbon datesJust now
  • Gift ideas for MumYesterday

In Shortcuts: The step reads “Capture Text to Inbox”. The text can come from the step before it, such as a dictated note.

A sample: four habits, three tasks for today and one overdue, and two finished weekly reviews.

Build on them in Shortcuts

Every action is also in the Shortcuts app under HourLife, to run from a shortcut, the Action button or an automation. There, some take more than Siri asks for. Three to start with:

  • Hear your day when the alarm stops

    1. When my alarm is stopped
    2. Get Today's Tasks

    A personal automation. Today's Tasks asks you to unlock first, so your list is never read out from a locked phone.

  • A longer session on the Action button

    1. Action button
    2. Start a focus sessionMinutes 50

    Set the minutes, from 1 to 99. Left out, the session runs at your usual length.

  • Keep the week's review in Notes

    1. Get snapshot of Review
    2. Create NoteBody Snapshot

    The snapshot carries your written answers only, never ratings or scores.

For a place in the app no action covers, a shortcut can open one of the app's links, listed in Getting started.

On the Mac

The Mac app has the same actions and phrases, in Siri, Spotlight and Shortcuts. Start Focus starts the Mac's own timer, the one in the menu bar.

HourLife for Mac

Good to know

  • Today's Tasks and Review Snapshot ask you to unlock first, so your tasks and reviews are never read out from a locked phone. Review Snapshot gives the written answers only, never ratings or scores.
  • Log Habit never takes a check-in back: a habit already done today stays done. A habit done several times a day gets its next check.
  • Siri doesn't offer medication habits, habits that fill in from Apple Health, or paused ones. A checklist habit has steps to tick, so Siri sends you to the app for it.
  • Siri learns a new habit's name the next time HourLife starts. Until then, “Log a habit in HourLife” finds it.
  • The phrases are in English, like the app.

HourLife

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What would you like to know?

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Keep this going in the app.

HourLife turns these ideas into a daily system — goals, habits, focus, and reflection in one private place.

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