I recently upgraded my iPhone 10 to an iPhone 16 Pro. The iPhone 16 Pro has an action button that I have been trying to make use of. My phone is always on silent/vibrate, so the standard toggle for Silent Mode doesn’t really make sense for me.

I’ve always been enamored by digital voice recorders and quickly capturing thoughts and todos anywhere (because by the time Notion opens on my phone I’ve probably forgotten what the original idea was). I’ve also always wanted a “smarter Siri” that could do custom things that I could program it to do. I got to thinking, “what if I could combine these two ideas to utilize the new action button?”.

AudioPen

AudioPen is a voice recording app designed for quick and easy audio capture. It allows users to record voice memos, thoughts, and ideas with just a tap. The app is particularly useful for those who want to quickly capture information without the need to type or navigate through multiple screens. It also has an API, with integrations into Zapier.

In the context of using it with the iPhone 16 Pro's action button, I set up AudioPen to start a new voice recording immediately when the button is pressed, making it an ideal tool for capturing thoughts on the go.

If you are interested in checking out AudioPen, please use my affiliate link here (it's a win-win for both of us!)

Image below courtesy of AudioPen in the Chrome Web Store

Zapier

Zapier is a web-based automation tool that allows users to connect different apps and services to create automated workflows, called "Zaps". It acts as a bridge between various applications, enabling them to work together seamlessly without the need for coding knowledge.

With Zapier, users can create automated tasks that trigger actions in one app based on events in another. For example, you could set up a Zap that automatically saves email attachments to a cloud storage service, or one that creates a new task in a project management tool when a specific type of email is received.

To bring my personal assistant to life, Zapier serves as the intermediary between AudioPen and other services, allowing for the automation of tasks based on the voice recordings captured through the iPhone's action button.

Bringing AudioPen and Zapier together

My “personal assistant” zap is set up to trigger whenever a new AudioPen recording is triggered. The payload that gets sent to Zapier includes the original transcription, a title, a summary, and a timestamp of when it was created.

I used the Zapier “paths” conditional to set up multiple scenarios to go down based on what was in the original transcript. For instance, if the original transcript includes “new notion note” or “new note in notion”, it then goes down that path.

Zapier AI

I really hope that AI doesn’t automate our jobs away, but instead takes the tedium out of mundane and empowers us to do more meaningful work. Zapier AI is a perfect example of this in my opinion. Because my voice notes could be comprised of pretty much anything, I can use Zapier AI to make sense of what is in there, and then splice out the necessary metadata (like when a todo item is due, or what emoji to use as my slack status) needed to use in the next steps.

Implementations so far

I’ve currently set up a few integrations for my personal assistant. I utilize Todoist for my daily driver of reminders and things to do, Notion for my bullet journal, note taking, and writing, and Slack for communication with my team.

Todoist: If my voice note includes “create a new todo” or similar phrases, Zapier goes down the path of figuring out what a concise title should be, and Zapier AI helps decide if the item belongs in my @personal or @work todoist, along with how long that task should probably take.

Notion: If my transcript includes “notion idea” or “new note”, then Zapier goes and creates a new database item in my Daily Notes database, and Zapier AI helps figure out what tags to apply to it to help me categorize my content. The original transcript gets saved as the content of my item, and then Notion AI creates a detailed and actionable summary in my database view for quick access.

Slack status: I really hate checking Slack on my phone when I’m out and about. I get sucked into messages when I’m not in front of my computer. If I am out and about during working hours running an errand, I can quickly set my Slack Status from a voice note to let my team know my availability. If my voice note includes “set slack status”, Zapier AI summarizes my message into a simple status, comes up with a representational emoji (”Running an errand” → 🏃), and sets the duration as well (”… i’ll be away the next hour” → duration: 60).

Summary

I’m just getting started with my personal assistant journey using AudioPen and Zapier, but I’m excited about using technology to help keep my life organized and efficient. I’ve been using it the last 2 days, and I’ve been slowly training myself to use it more and more whenever ideas or things I don’t want to forget pop up. Knowing that my thoughts are being captured with very little friction is exciting!

Interested in a personal assistant? What other integrations would you recommend? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let me know what you think on Twitter, @erskinerob!

If you are interested in checking out AudioPen, please use my affiliate link here (it's a win-win for both of us!)

This post is not sponsored by any of the services mentioned; I built this for myself and I enjoy it enough that I figured that others might too!