Routine is something necessary when carrying out certain activities, whether professional or not. For this reason, although we all fear falling into monotony, there are occasions when maintaining a certain order can go a long way towards being more productive and then having that precious free time that is always so necessary to disconnect. So, let’s take a look at how to take advantage of Alexa reminders and routines.
Alexa routines and reminders, what are they
The routines and reminders of Alexa are two of its functions that can help you the most if, for example, you have made the leap to working remotely from home. Although it really is something you can always take advantage of if you know how to do it or have some initial ideas to get more out of it. And that is what we are going to see, but before we go by parts.
What is an Alexa routine. As you can imagine or you will already know one is something that is an action or set of actions that are going to be repeated on a regular basis. In the case of Alexa, routines are ways to automate actions. For example, turning on the lights in the studio where you work, playing music or even turning on the coffee maker.
Reminders on your part are neither more nor less than all those things you need to remember. It can be specific data or topics and it will be enough if you do it only once or something that is repeated from time to time, such as, for example, sending a report summarizing your daily, weekly or other work.
Well, all these things that you could do in multiple ways are very simple if you do them using Alexa. The Amazon voice assistant, through its Amazon Echo speakers or compatible devices, is a great ally in creating routines and reminders that are repeated regularly. So let’s see how to create them.
How to create recurring reminders in Alexa
To create Alexa reminders that are repeated every so often or days, the easiest thing is to do it from the app. You could do it using voice commands, but from your mobile device it will be much easier and you will be sure that it is created exactly.
To create a recurring reminder on Alexa do the following:
- Open the Alexa app on your smartphone or mobile device
- Tap on the three stripes icon in the upper left corner
- Now select the Reminder tab
- Click on the symbol to create a new Reminder
Ok, now all you have to do is enter all the information that helps you identify what it is and what you should do. For example, the name of the reminders, if it will be repeated or not, what days you will do it and at what time, as well as through which device it will sound. For example, if they are topics related to your professional activity, it is logical that you do it through the speaker that you have excited work area.
How to create routines in Alexa
The routines are also very easy to create, although if you want to squeeze them to the maximum you can do it by integrating with other third-party services such as IFTTT. Anyway, the basic thing you should know at first is how to create them.
- Open the Alexa app on your phone or tablet
- Tap the icon in the upper left corner
- Then select the Routines section
- Give create a new routine
- Enter a name
- Select when to activate. For example, when you say “Alexa, get to work”
- Finally, select the action or actions to take
This is the basis for creating any routine, but to take full advantage of all its possibilities, the idea is to combine actions to create a more sophisticated routine. Only one thing, when creating voice commands, try to keep them simple to remember and direct. For example, “Alexa, good morning” “Alexa, to work” “Alexa, end of work”.
How to take advantage of Alexa reminders and routines
Now that these two Alexa options are clear to you, let’s see some examples that can help you when working from home and using your Amazon Echo smart speaker.
The first is to create reminders of activities that you have to do on a daily or recurring basis . For example, if every Monday first thing you have to send certain data to your manager or colleagues, you only have to create a reminder that will be executed every Monday. The same if what you have to do has time on another day each and every week.
Reminders are also useful to pick up habits the first days of teleworking, so that you don’t run out of time and don’t spend too many hours or waste time and that forces you to finish your workday later.
For their part, the routines are ideal for automating actions such as turning on the lights in your work environment, even raising the blinds if you have them domotic, playing music and activating the coffee maker to prepare coffee. All these things are very easy to do thanks to Alexa Skills and its integration with hundreds of devices.
Some of our favorite and useful daily reminders and routines:
- Daily alarms with music and weather information
- Reminders of activities that are repeated from time to time
- Routine to start working time (lights on, timer starts until break time, etc.)
- Lighting change for virtual meetings
- Reminder for the time of study and work of the little ones
Combining reminders and routines you can get extra help when working from home , although I would not rule out any of this if you want to apply it to personal and leisure use. After all, the basis is the same, freeing your mind from certain tasks and facilitating repetitive ones through automated actions.
Therefore, the usefulness you give it already depends on you, but you can get a lot out of it. For example, for professional topics as you have seen, to create new daily habits , to help the little ones in the house when doing certain activities or to know when is the “recess time” if they are doing Homeschooling. Because it is much easier to be aware and react to a sound message than through notifications on your smartphone.
One last tip, if you are going to use Alexa in your work environment, you can pair a Bluetooth headset and thus ensure that you do not disturb the other people you work with or live with.
