7 Google Assistant Routines That Can Help Organize Your Life – SlashGear

The good morning stock Assistant routine is a useful way to start your day, and it illustrates both the uses and the limitations of this way of assembling actions. In a nutshell, it gives you the weather, a rundown of your calendar and reminders, announces upcoming birthdays, and warns if your device’s battery is low. At the end of all that, it gives you the day’s news from your preferred sources.

What this routine isn’t is an alarm clock, so it isn’t triggered by time but rather by one of three spoken phrases like “Hey Google, good morning” or “I’m up.” You could add a time starter, but it appears that only one of these starters will trigger the day’s routine.

Perhaps you have spotted the missing action here — Google Tasks. Calendar appointments and reminders might overlap with Tasks, but tasks aren’t necessarily tied to a time and you might want to know what your task list is for the day. Alas, when you try to add such an action, the Assistant voice of your choosing will announce, “Sorry, I can’t work with Tasks yet.” 

One way around this would be to use a Google Keep list for your tasks. Keep is one of the best note-taking apps and is well-integrated with Assistant. If you have a list called “My Stuff,” you can add a custom action to your routine that says “Read my Keep list called ‘My Stuff.'” However, don’t call your tasks list “Tasks,” as that seems to confound Assistant, and be sure to correctly specify whether you want to hear a Keep note or list. If you ask for a note called “My Stuff” and what you actually have is a list, Assistant won’t be able to find it.