I’ve used Keyboard Maestro to simplify my daily and weekly routines for a little over a year now. I thought I’d share some of my favorite macros that I’ve used on a daily and weekly basis.

Keyboard Maestro is a unique system-wide app available on MacOS that allows us to customize our computer and truly make it our own. It doesn’t take a programming degree to customize our Macs. It uses a series of actions that can mimic any keyboard or mouse interaction.

I’ve been interested in customizing my Mac to reduce friction whenever I use my Mac. Simplifying multi-steps processes can offload many tasks that I would normally have to do manually. Keyboard Maestro has been the biggest reason for my return from an iPad-oriented lifestyle into a multi-platform lifestyle where I can split my time equally between MacOS and iPadOS.

I don’t create a lot of macros or shortcuts. But when I do create a macro, I use it a lot. It’s not about amassing a large number of macros. It’s about customizing my apps to fit my work style. I might find an app not behaving exactly as I want it to. I could send an e-mail to Customer Service with a feature request. Or I can take matters into my own hands and create a macro that will mimic how I think the app should behave.

Here are a few routines that I’ve been using to speed up my workflow. These are just examples of the different types of routines I have encountered.

Arrange My App Windows Easily

There are times I want to arrange my app windows perfectly each time. I have a macro that opens my OmniFocus “Today” perspective on the left side and Fantastical’s Day view on the right side.

Original Number of steps: 7

1. Open OmniFocus

2. Switch to perspective showing all available actions

3. Arrange window to desired size

4. Open Fantastical

5. Switch to Day View

6. Arrange window to desired size

7. Go to tomorrow

Now that I have my window arranged, I can drag-and-drop OmniFocus task into my Fantastical Day view to create a time block. This macro makes time blocking easy for me by automatically arranging my windows.

OmniFocus Fantastical Dashboard

Perform a repeated action

I love Things 3’s task view. OmniFocus can be overwhelming because I can see my left-side Sidebar, outline, and right-side inspector.

I find this view helpful only when I’m in “planning” mode. I can tinker with all of my task details with the sidebar and inspector panels open. But it is quite distracting when I am in “action” mode. After I complete my planning session, I can hit a keyboard shortcut to switch between a “detailed” view and a “simplified” view.

When I see OmniFocus in this simplified view, I know I am in action mode. All I see is my outline. This view reminds of Things 3’s streamlined view. I can work easily in here because I don’t need to tinker with task attributes. I can focus on the tasks presented in this list.

Original Number of steps: 4

1. Hide or show the Toolbar

2. Hide or show the Inspector

3. Hide or show the Sidebar

4. Resize the window

OmniFocus Toggle Simple to Detailed View

Automate A Daily Chore

As part of my daily planning sessions, I look at OmniFocus and choose three tasks as my Most Important Tasks (MITs) for the day. I created a macro that will automate this multi-step process. First, I highlight 3 tasks in OmniFocus and then hit my keyboard shortcut.

1. Copy the tasks to the clipboard

2. Open Apple Notes

3. Hide OmniFocus

4. Create a new note

5. Paste clipboard contents holding my OmniFocus tasks

6. Select all text in the note

7. Change text style to Bulleted List

8. Increase font size by 4 points

9. Add descriptive text “My Most Important Tasks (MITs) for <date>”

MITs to Apple Notes

I like to use my task manager when I am curating my projects and checklists. Moving my tasks to an Apple Note keeps me from tinkering inside my task manager. If I need more information, the copied text are hyper-linked back to my task manager.

Create a Guided Checklist

I can create a guided checklist with prompts that remind me about the next step to take in a lengthy workflow such as the Mind Sweep. I took the GTD mindsweep and converted it into a Keyboard Maestro macro. The steps are very simple. Show a prompt with instructions. Open the appropriate app (calendar, CRM, task manager, notes taker) and go through the mind sweep. When I click on the Next button, I advance to the next step.