Free automation · Handled

You remember it at 11 at night, and it's handled before you sleep.

Some things come to you at the worst time. In bed, in the car line, in the middle of something else. Handled is one tap on your home screen. It asks how the thing should be handled, and you pick: send a text, send an email, remind me, or add it to the calendar.

What it does

Tap it, say or type the thing, and choose one of four ways to handle it. It goes where it belongs, so it's out of your head.

What you need

An iPhone with the Shortcuts app. It installs from a link, and the steps below cover the rest.

One email, the whole library

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Running iOS 27?

Two things look different in Shortcuts. When you create a new shortcut, the first screen asks you to describe it in words. Skip that and tap Edit in the top right to get to the action list the steps below use. Some phones skip the describe screen and land on the action list straight away. And automations no longer have their own tab. The trigger now sits at the top of the shortcut itself, as the first block. The steps below are written for iOS 27, with a short note under each trigger step for iOS 26 and earlier.

If you set up before updating, nothing changes. Your automations moved over on their own. The steps below build everything by hand so everyone gets the same result, whichever version you are on.

New · Handled

One tap for the thing you will otherwise carry around all day.

You are standing somewhere with no hands free and a thought arrives. Text the coach back. Email the teacher. Remember the permission slip. You tell yourself you will do it later, and then later you are doing something else and the thought is still there, taking up room.

This one is a shortcut rather than a build, so there is nothing to make. You tap a link and it is on your phone. Put it on your home screen and it is one tap away the moment a thought turns up. It asks how the thing should be handled, and you pick: send a text, send an email, remind me, or add to calendar.

The point is not that it does the thing faster. It is that the thought stops being yours to hold.

Setup 2 min In Shortcuts Trigger You tap it

Part one · put it on your phone

1

Tap the link below on the iPhone you want it on. Shortcuts opens and shows you what it does.
Get the Handled shortcut

2

Scroll to the bottom and tap Add Shortcut. It is now in your library.

Part two · put it where you will reach for it

3

Open the shortcut, tap the i at the bottom, and tap Add to Home Screen, the first item on the Details sheet. On iOS 26 or earlier, press and hold the shortcut in your library, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.

4

Name it something you will recognize in a hurry. Mine says Handled.

5

Tap Add. It sits on your home screen like any other app.

Part three · point it at your own lists

Do this once before the first time you use it. Until you do, Remind me is looking for my list, not yours.

6

In your library, tap the three dots on Handled to open it.

7

Find the Remind me section. In the Add action, tap the list after the word to and choose the Reminders list you want these in.

The Add reminder action with the list name, Handled, marked
8

Find the Add to calendar section. Tap the arrow at the end of that Add action, tap Calendar, and choose the one you want. If you skip this, events go to your default calendar.

The Add event action with the arrow at the end of it marked
9

Tap Done.

Good to know

It asks every time rather than remembering what you picked last, which is deliberate. The same thought is a text on Tuesday and a calendar event on Thursday.

Reminders go to the list you picked in step 7. Events go to the calendar you picked in step 8, or your default calendar if you skipped it. If you share a list with someone, point it at that one and the thought lands with both of you.

Texts and emails open ready to send rather than sending on their own, so you are always the one who hits send.

If "email the teacher" is the thought that keeps showing up, this is the shortcut for it. School Mail Triage reads the long email from school, pulls out every date, and puts each one on your calendar with a reminder. It works on a photo of the paper handout too. One time purchase.

See School Mail Triage →

Good to know.

Put it on your home screen so it's one tap when the thought turns up.

Remind me is the one to use when it's too late to text someone. Cassie used it at 1am for a question she didn't want to text a near stranger that late. It reminded her in the morning, and she sent it then.

See every free automation in the library →

For the things you'd otherwise have to think of every day.

Handled is for the thought that shows up at 11. The Family Operating System handles the ones that come back every day — a text at 8 with each person's day in it, and chore reminders that go to the kid who owns the chore.

See The Family Operating System →