Optimizing the iPhone Action Button for Task Capture

Optimizing the iPhone Action Button for Task Capture

Using Shortcuts to quickly capture tasks to Todoist via thumbs or voice

Mike Stein

Oct 20, 2026

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Photo by

Samuel Angor

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I’m one of those slow upgraders when it comes to iPhones, so I only recently got a modern model with the configurable button on the left side, the

Action button

.

The Action button’s default behavior is to toggle Silent on and off, which, while useful, is not something I found myself doing often each day. (I find it convenient enough to instead toggle Silent via a simple

Apple Shortcut

on my home screen to

Set Silent Mode -> Toggle

; just a few clicks more than the Action button

.

)

This led me to instead want to use the Action button to optimize the speed of the most important thing I do with my phone several times each day:

quickly capturing tasks

.

The Basics of Capturing Tasks

Mike Stein

·

Feb 10

Read full story

Apple provides a native feature to map the Action button to Voice Notes, but that would create extra steps for me to move from verbalized ideas to distinct to-do list items in my official capture mechanism.

Carl Pullein

mentioned on his

podcast

that he connected his Action button to his task manager via

Apple Shortcuts

, so I started exploring that.

Building my Shortcut

A simple Shortcut immediately led to a simple and strong task capture flow, but I found myself wanting a few extra features to handle two different cases of each of two situations:

Due Date capture

Sometimes, I want to capture the day or time that I want to do the task, e.g.:

A client I want to follow up with on “Monday”

A reminder to make sure the show-and-tell stuff makes it into my kid’s backpack at “7am” tomorrow

Most of the time, though, I want my new task to just land in my inbox for today

to reassess and triage during my next to-do list review batch, e.g.:

A partial thought or task that I want to revisit to flesh out more before I prioritize it and pick a time and day to do it

Something I do want to do at some point today, such as getting a finished load of laundry out of the dryer

Typing vs. voice input

Sometimes, it is fastest and easiest to type my task, such as when it is short and/or when I want to stay quiet, e.g.:

Noting a quick to-do during a meeting

Anytime my puppy has actually fallen asleep near me while I’m working (

it’s started to happen!

)

Other times, it is fastest and easiest to verbalize my task, such as when it is detailed and/or when I’m in the middle of using my hands, e.g.:

Longer, stream-of-thought capture when an interesting idea strikes me while driving

Making a note to remember to buy more onions immediately after I use the last one

So, with a light bit of logic customization within Shortcuts,

I built a single script that handles all four cases with the minimum number of clicks

. With this mapped to my Action button, I have the quickest means of task capture available to me at all times no matter the situation.

How it works

Here are the two or three steps of screens I get when I activate my finished Shortcut via the Action button:

What I see when I use my Shortcut

First, I get a text prompt where I can either enter the content of the task to add, OR, if I leave it blank and just hit Done, switch to a voice input flow and dictate the task.

Then it asks for a due date for the task (either via text or, if chosen above, via voice input). If I leave it blank and just hit Done, it sets the due date to my default for easy triage: “today”.

Easy. Including the activation of the Action button,

it’s as little as two clicks to ensure that the idea that just came into my head is now out of it and into my official capture mechanism

.

How to build my Shortcut

This example is written for Todoist as the task management app, but the approach should generalize to any similar app compatible with Shortcuts.

I actually built mine as two separate Shortcuts: one to always “Dictate task”, and another to “Dictate or Type Task”. The latter is the one I mapped to my Action button, and it calls the former. You could build the whole thing as a single large shortcut, but for ease of replication, I’ve included both of mine below along with brief remarks on what each step is doing in the captions.

Shortcut 1: Dictate task

This is the “inner” Shortcut called by the next one. If you’d like to try always dictating your task when you use your Action button, you could build just this Shortcut and map your Action button to it.

The shortcut starts by taking your dictation of your task as its first input, then a second dictation of the due date, if applicable. Then it uses the “If” logic to treat the case of an empty second input (due date), continued in the next screenshot.

When the second input (due date) is empty – which you can set when using the shortcut by simply clicking the red recording circle to end the input without saying anything – it’ll fill in today’s date. Then it adds the task to Todoist.

Finally, to complete the configuration, expand the right arrow in the Todoist (or similar) block at the bottom and set the following parameters.

I also found that I wanted to configure each of the Dictate text blocks from to Stop Listening “After Short Pause” instead of the default of “After Pause”. You can modify this in each of those blocks by expanding the right arrow.

Shortcut 2: Dictate or Type Task

This is the “outer” Shortcut that I map to my Action button.

First, it prompts you to either type the task as the first input or to leave it blank if you’d rather dictate verbally. Then it handles the case of this input not being empty (the typed case) with similar logic to the Dictate task Shortcut above; the second input is a due date, with a reminder to the user that leaving it blank will result in the default of “today”.

Next, it uses conditional logic to fill in the default due date of “today” if you left it blank when using the Shortcut, and then it adds the task in Todoist.

The last piece of the Shortcut handles the case of the initial input being blank – your indication that you’d like to dictate rather than type your task. In that case, it calls the Dictate task shortcut above.

Finally, similarly to the first Shortcut, to complete the configuration, expand the right arrow in the Todoist (or similar) block at the bottom and set the following parameters.

Put it into practice

Unless you’re making constant use of the default Action button behavior of toggling Silent, give my way a try by

building a Shortcut

that matches the screenshots above and

remapping your Action button to that Shortcut

. If you’ve never built a Shortcut before, take it slow and build it line-by-line.

You may find some useful tweaks to the Shortcuts that suit you better. If you want to capture additional detail such as priority level, or if your task manager app has different features that matter for the way you work, tinker around with the logic.

Got a faster way of capturing your tasks digitally? How about an even more productive use of your Action button? Let me know in the comments!

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I’ve organized my archives into a recommended reading order. You can learn more about this “book”

here

or hop to the next or previous “chapter” via the links below.

Previous chapter:

The Basics of Capturing Tasks

Mike Stein

·

Feb 10

Your capture mechanism, the system you use to keep track of tasks, is the central hub of your productivity processes. You have one, even if you don’t realize it. Is it serving your needs? Different tools offer different tradeoffs and upsides and, as always, the best solution for you will depend on how you work best.

Read full story

Next chapter:

Creative Uses of Your Task Capture Mechanism

Mike Stein

·

Feb 17

Using a quick capture mechanism or digital to-do liskt keeps your task management structured, collaborative, and permanent, as I explored last week:

Read full story

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