Day One templates - LCP or workflow?

Cool Workflows
1

I am trying to drive some specific personal journaling behavior and really like the idea of templated prompts. It seems I have two main ways to achieve this 1) use Workflow app, 2) use Launch Center Pro.

I’m looking for input from the group on ways you may have done something similar using either of these methods or something else? I am not sure which method is going to work the best for me.

Here is what i see as the pros/cons to each.

Workflow:
Pros:

  • Really easy to build and update
  • Can add other variables easily (e.g., today’s date)
  • If you have a long prompt text workflow will wrap text in the input prompt (so you can see the whole question)

Cons:

  • Need to setup a reminder / trigger in another app (due, LCP, tasks, etc.)
  • You see the whole workflow background (yes, this is a universal thing)

LCP

Pros:

  • Visually attractive
  • Prompt actions which allow for the keyboard return to move to the next prompt
  • Can be triggered directly from a scheduled notification

Con:

  • Totally inflexible to update and a challenge to create as you need to design the template and then encode the URL scheme.
  • Prompts don’t wrap text so you need to write short prompts
2

You could always use a TextExpander snippet if you’re using it. Then you could also use the same templates on Mac

3 Likes
3

How about Drafts? You could easily type up the template you like, copy it, create an action with “Insert Text” and the text you’ve just typed up, then you can write as much or as little as you like, and send it to Day One when you’re done.

You could even have a script which list the prompts in an array at the start, loops through them adding the answers to the draft (the question/prompts being optional), and then have the whole thing sent to Day One :slight_smile:

3 Likes
4

That is a good idea, I don’t personally have TE now, so it is would be an investment (although not much for the prior version on iOS only).

5

I like and use drafts. Can you elaborate a bit more on the scripting process? I guess for the basic setup i would just leave blank spaces between the various questions where I could fill in responses?

6

If you are using a task manager like Omnifocus or Things, I would recommend using a task twith a link to a workflow action to create your templet.

If you do not use a task manager I would recommend using the built in templet and reminder functions in Dayone.

7

Can’t you just put {{ and }} around them to take care of the encoding?

(seems to work fine for the template I use)

8

In LCP? Can you provide an example? I’m having trouble trying to replicate.

9

Part of my 5 Minute Journal template:

dayone://post?journal={{5 Minute Journal}}&entry={{Journal

#journal

|Three great things today...|
|:---|
|**1.** [prompt:Great thing 1]|
|**2.** [prompt:Great thing 2]|
|**3.** [prompt:Great thing 3]|
}}

This will ask for 3 great things (in 3 successive dialogs) and then create a Day One entry with the title Journal and the tag journal in the 5 Minute Journal journal. This entry contains a table with a header and each answer you entered in a separate row.

Does this help?

2 Likes
10

That is super helpful, and much easier than i had done before with the encoding.

1 Like
11

Could this approach be used with OmniFocus as discussed below?

Meaning, can I create a link to a repeating OmniFocus task that will open this Drafts created template?