Creates prep actions for selected upcoming events.
Meetings live in your calendar, and actions are managed in OmniFocus. This shortcut connects the two: choose the meetings you need to prepare for, and an action is created for each in your Inbox. The due date and time are calculated automatically based on the meeting’s start time.
Initial Setup
The first time you add the shortcut, it asks four questions. Every answer can be changed later at the top of the shortcut by editing the corresponding Text action.
Title Prefix – How each action title starts. The event name is appended to this prefix (e.g. “Prepare for” becomes “Prepare for Budget review”).
Days Ahead – The shortcut will show upcoming events. This setting determines how far into the future to look. 0 only shows events for later today, 1 includes tomorrow, and 3 includes the next 3 days (e.g. run it on a Monday with days ahead set to 3, and you will see remaining events from Monday to Thursday).
Lead Time – How many minutes before an event the prep action is due (e.g. 60 for an hour, 1440 for a day).
Tag – The tag applied to every prep action created by this shortcut. Type it exactly as it appears in OmniFocus, including any emoji. Leave it blank, and the prep actions are created without a tag.
Using the Shortcut
Run the shortcut, and you get a list of your upcoming events. Check the ones you need to prepare for, then tap or click Done. For each meeting you check, an action is created in your OmniFocus Inbox, tagged with the tag you specify and assigned a due date and time based on the lead time you provided. If an event is closer than your lead time (e.g. your lead time is 60 minutes and the event starts in 45 minutes), its action is due at the event’s start time. In general, it’s recommended that you allow some buffer between the due date and time and the start of the meeting.
Customizing the Shortcut
You’ll be shown events from all calendars accessible to the Calendar app.
To stop something from appearing, open the shortcut and add condition lines to the Find Calendar Events action. You can filter calendar events by calendar, title, location, duration, and number of attendees. For example, a calendar that contains meetings you never prepare for can be excluded entirely, and time you have blocked off to get work done can be excluded by name.