You might have heard of IFTTT, it’s not really that new. Someone told me about this crazy new app/website nearly two years ago and I started using it a little over a year ago for simple things and I’m simply just amazed by what it can do. It’s only limited by your imagination and creativity. I recently came across a few new formulas that have saved me time, so I thought I’d share these with you.

If This Then That was first a website, but also comes as a very functional app. It’s slogan is “putting the internet to work for you. Essentially, the website/app contains dozens of channels like gmail, dropbox, facebook, twitter, Instagram and many other apps/services you know and don’t know. With these channels, you create formulas. Trust me, it’s way easier than it sounds. Actually, you can browse hundreds of other people’s formulas and simply copy or modify them to fit your own needs. Here are a couple of the formulas I’ve been using for a while.

  • One recipe sends me a text at 7:30 every morning telling me the day’s weather.
  • One recipe sends me a text at 7:30 any morning that allergens are high.
  • One recipe sends me a text every Tuesday at 10:00 reminding me to take out the trash.
  • One recipe allows states that if I take a picture with Instagram and use #profile in the text, it will change my facebook profile picture to that picture.
  • One recipe sends every photo I post on Instagram to my mom via email (she’s not on Instagram)
  • One recipe puts every photo I like in Instagram to a folder in my dropbox for later viewing.
  • One recipe creates a diary of the places I go (where I check in on foursquare) on my google calendar

Here is the newest recipe that I found that is saving me some serious time in turning in reimbursements. I’ve taken one formula and modified it multiple ways to gather the receipts from multiple vendors when orders are placed.

Multiple formulas look for receipts in my email (like amazon, iTunes and constant contact) and send it as a text file to a folder in my dropbox called receipts. When I sit down to work on my reimbursements, I simply print the documents in this folder and it takes care of a big chunk of my finances.

IFTTT is a fun website/app, but it can also create systems and processes that make your life easier and more efficient.

Question: What is your favorite IFTTT recipe?
Question: If you could create a IFTTT recipe that doesn’t exists, what would it be?