What you need to know
- One Reddit user reports that they used Shortcuts to impress their boss and get a new role.
- They used Shortcuts to drastically reduce the time it took to create reports.
- Reports that previously took hours to create were cut down to mere minutes.
Apple's Shortcuts app and framework have been a real boon for people looking to get into automation, but one person took things a step further and used them to get a new job, earn more money, and get away from a week of back-breaking work in the process.
Reddit user AngriBuddhist posted to share details about how Shortcuts improved his life by helping them move from a job that was all-out manual labor, replacing it with a role that allows him to work from home instead.
According to the post, the writer was able to greatly reduce the amount of time-intensive business reports took to put together by automating the process using Shortcuts. Reports that would take hours to collate were cut down to just minutes.
Prior to being a Workflow/Shortcuts user, the closest thing to automation/scripting that I'd done is make some pretty in-depth spreadsheets. For the last 5 years, though, I've been using Shortcuts to create daily reports for work. Manually, these would take more than 24 hours a day. I do them in 10-20 minutes. I've created other weekly reports that would also take more than 24 hours to create manually. With Shortcuts, it takes about 5 minutes.
After the big impact the addition of Shortcuts had on a manager's workload, AngriBuddhist was given a promotion that allows them to work three days per week from home, doing admin work, without any reduction in pay. They can even continue to do their previous manual labor role for two days per week, increasing their pay as a result. And all because they used Shortcuts to run some reports.
The internet is full of people sharing stories of how Shortcuts has been able to help them automate laborious tasks, but this is the first time I've seen someone get real-world financial gain from using it. Top marks, AngriBuddhist!
