Clever Way to Escape from a Bad Meeting

Last week, we learned how to create a recipe in IFTTT that calls your phone when your favorite team scores. (Well, there is some lag time. You actually get a phone call at the end of each quarter.) Today, you will learn a clever way to escape from one of those bad meetings.

Read any time management book, and you are sure to mind discussions about meetings. Most of them are bad. They are ill-planned. They drag on for too long. Little thought is put into who really needs to attend and at what point some members may be dismissed. Does this description sound like what happens in your organization?

 How many times have you been sitting on one of these meetings wishing you would get an urgent phone call, one which would require you to excuse yourself from the meeting? Let's set up a recipe with IFTTT which will do just that.

If you have not already done so, go to http://ifttt.com and create a free account. You will then be ready to create your first "recipe."

On the dashboard, click on "Create."

On the next screen, click on the "this" link. You are creating the "trigger."

You will now see a list of "channels." In this case, we are going to choose "Email."

You may get a message to "Activate" the channel. When you use a channel for the first time, you will generally be asked to activate it. It takes only a couple of mouse clicks.

On the "Choose a Trigger" screen, select "Send IFTTT any email."

On the next screen, click "Create Trigger."

We move on to the "that" part of the recipe. Click on the "that" link.

I see another list of channels. Choose "Phone Call." 

On the next screen, you have only one option. Click on "Call my phone." IFTTT will use whatever phone number you gave it when you created your account. You will want to use your cell pone in this trigger, so be sure your cell phone is the one IFTTT has in your account settings.

On the next screen, click "Create Action." You can customize your messages. Highlight and delete the fields which appear be default in the message box and write your own, such as the one I composed for my recipe: 

After clicking "Create Action," the next screen presents our recipe: "IF Send trigger@ifttt.com any email from (your email address) THEN call my phone at xxx-xxx-xxxx." If you wish, write a description in the space provided. Click "Create Recipe."

One small task remains. In your phone's contacts, create a new contact. Call it something like "IFTTT" and for the email address, enter "trigger@ifttt.com." You are ready to put the plan into action!

The next time you are in a meeting from which you need to escape, take out your phone and create a new email message. Choose "IFTTT" and cllick "Send." You do not need to compose a message nor even a subject line. When your phone rings, you hear your "urgent" message, offer your apologies, and make your escape!

Get a Phone Call When Your Favorite Team Scores With IFTTT

College football kicks into high gear this weekend, we all want to know how our favorite team is doing, even when we can't watch it on TV. A portable radio has always been a reliable source of updates. In recent years, activity on Facebook and Twitter gives us a flavor of the action. But what if we could actually get a phone call every time our team scores?

This example is just one of the many tasks which can be automated with a free service call "If This Then That," located at http://ifttt.com. In this post, I will walk you through this example.

Go to http://ifttt.com and create a free account. You will then be ready to create your first "recipe." On the dashboard, click on "Create."

On the next screen, click on the "this" link. You are creating the "trigger."

You will now see a list of "channels." In this case, we are going to choose "ESPN."

You will get a message to "Activate" the channel. Any time you use a channel for the first time, you will be asked to activate it. It takes only a couple of mouse clicks.

Next, you see several options. We are going to choose "New in-game update." You may later wish to create an additional recipe to get breaking news stories for your favorite team or breaking news stories for a sport of your choosing.

Now, we will select our sport and team from the drop-down menus.

I am going to choose "College Football." Being a Jacksonville State graduate, my choice is "Jacksonville State Gamecocks." My trigger is complete, so I choose "Create Trigger."

I have now finished "if this," so I can move to the second part of the recipe, "then that." We will tell the recipe what to do when there is a score in the JSU game. Click "that."

I see another list of channels. My choice is "Phone Call." As you examine the options for channels, you will see that you could choose "email" to receive your update that way. For that matter, you could choose "Facebook" and have IFTTT write a Facebook post with the score update for you. But for now, we will choose for you to get a phone call.

On the next screen, you have only one option. Click on "Call my phone."

On the next screen, click "Create Action." As you create other recipes, you can customize your messages. 

The next screen presents our recipe: "IF a new in-game update for the Jacksonville State University Gamecocks THEN call my phone at xxx-xxx-xxxx." If you wish, write a description in the space provided. Click "Create Recipe."

You're done! When their is a new score involving your favorite team, you get a phone call.

What Else Can You Do With IFTTT?

When the post you are reading now appeared on my blog, an entry appeared on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, letting my connections know this post, complete with the title of the post and a link to it. It all happens without my doing a thing. It's all done with IFTTT. 

One recipe says that IF I post to Blogger, THEN post to Facebook. A second recipe does the same with Twitter, and a third recipe handles LinkedIn. If your business has both a Facebook page and a Twitter account, you could compose a recipe which would allow you to compose something on Twitter and the exact same message post automatically on Facebook.

Other popular uses of IFTTT include alerting you when rain or snow is predicted for your area or even automatically operating WeMo devices.

To become more familiar with the capabilities of IFTTT, click the "Browse" link at the top of the dashboard. When you see one you like, click the arrow to the right of it and then click "Use Recipe." You can also get other ideas for using IFTTT from these articles:

• Share Your Best IFTTT Recipe
• 35 Super Useful IFTTT Recipes You Might Not Know About
• If This/Then That and the Belkin WeMo
• 10 Ways IFTTT Can Help Your Business
• 5 IFTTT Recipes That Make My Life Easier

Give "If This Then That" a try. Once you have created a recipe or two, you will get the hang of it. You just may find a recipe that makes your life easier every day.