Hi. I am trying to cut back on apps, maybe only using Mail, Reminders and Calendar in time.
I have been using Things and a killer feature for me is the ability to create a new Things entry anywhere in MacOS with a keyboard shortcut. The popup dialogue box is very fast and presents very little disruption, allowing me to create a reminder as I think of something and return to the primary task with almost no distraction.
I’m wondering if anyone has a workflow to do the same thing with the Apple Reminders app? I have seen that a Shortcut action could work but the functionality seems limited and also feels slow to run (on my 2020 Intel MBP)
Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I’ve had a look around and have not found much.
Thanks!
+1 for me. I’m using Reminders very successfully after moving from Things 3. The only thing I miss is the quick entry feature. I also using the shortcut but on an M1 MBP. It runs slow on for me as well. Is this a problem with shortcuts in general on the Mac or specific to this particular shortcut?
It is slow for me even with the shortcut. I used a stopwatch to time it. It takes 6.5 sec to show on the screen for input. I can activate it faster by invoking Reminders via Spotlight and hitting Command+N, which takes 1.5 sec or less for the new reminder to show up for my data entry.
set theSubject to text returned of (display dialog "Choose a title:" default answer "New Reminder " & (short date string of (current date)) & ", " & (time string of (current date)))
tell application "Reminders"
tell list "Reminders" -- Reminders list for the new reminder
make new reminder with properties {name:theSubject}
end tell
end tell
While I’m still on Things for my own GTD practice, I use reminders for some shared lists.
And for replacing my need for a Quick Entry alternativa on that matter, I use this Alfred Workflow that can be easily customized for a keyboard shortcut activation.
Goober here. I downloaded the shortcut. I have no idea where or how to add what you shared to the shortcut. Unlike in Drafts, I don’t see a place to edit the script (if that is the correct technical term), which I have been able to do in a limited fashion in Drafts. On the Mac or iPad, where do I go to enter and change the information you show above? Sorry to be so inept but I have zero coding/programming experience.
Perhaps I should reinstall Alfred. I’m a minimalist at heart so after doing a nuke and pave on my MBP, I have installed a limited number of apps. Hmmm…
Oh, sorry about that. It’s an AppleScript so there are lots of ways to run it. For example. if you have Keyboard Maestro, you can paste that into an “Execute an AppleScript” action.
Is it fast? I can invoke a new Reminder with two keystrokes in about 1.5 sec., +/-.
PS, does this mean it is likely to stop working in the future?
This repo is no longer actively developed. I will review pull requests but not respond to issues or requests. Unfortunately I have been unable to keep up with the changes Apple makes to reminders in every OS release without warning.
I can attest, however, that the javascript logic under the hood of this workflow still works fine even under Ventura Beta. So I guess we still can use for a while, at least for quick entries (I don’t use the natural language parsing for time and dates since it doesn’t work with Portuguese text).
As per fast… it’s pretty much instant on my end.
You should give it a try. Even if, in the future, this workflow stops working remind yourself that:
It’s not the core feature of the product nor the data, so if it doesn’t get updated it will not mess with your existing data and you can always revert the creation of new items to other ways (such as creating a Workflow/Macro to open Reminders and Creating a New Item);
Also, considering to the nature of GitHub repos and the future of Alfred’s own Workflow sharing site, I guess someone will probably adopt and update the code to match Apple’s future release since reminders seems to be getting a lot of attention from the power users community which happens to be the same public Alfred is pointed at.
I use Keyboard Maestro for this: it simply brings Reminders to the fore with the cursor in a new reminder field. It’s quick even if Reminders has to be started rather than just bringing it to the foreground – that’s even with the built-in delay of 0.5 seconds to make sure everything’s ready before the new reminder is triggered.
You could build in a dialogue box to capture the reminder and then feed the result into Reminders, but as this simple one works quickly and without fuss it doesn’t seem worth complicating things.
I downloaded the shortcut. I have no idea where or how to add what you shared to the shortcut. Unlike in Drafts, I don’t see a place to edit the script (if that is the correct technical term), which I have been able to do in a limited fashion in Drafts. On the Mac or iPad, where do I go to enter and change the information you show above? Sorry to be so inept but I have zero coding/programming experience. 
but I appreciate it anyway!
