Automations

An automation is a standing instruction with a time attached. When the time comes, BrightMind does the work and reaches you with the result. It can run once or repeat.

There is no builder to fill in. You create one by asking in a normal conversation, and you change it the same way.

Say what you want and when. For example:

“Every Sunday at 7pm, look at my week ahead and pick the three things that matter most.”

“Tomorrow at 9, remind me to book the dentist.”

“Call me every weekday at 6 to wrap up the day.”

BrightMind confirms with the day and time it saved. Check that before you move on: a reply that only describes what it could do has not booked anything.

A nudge is the simplest thing an automation can do, not the limit of it. You are giving BrightMind a job, not setting a reminder. A message run is a real turn, with the same access to your tasks, your calendar, your memory and the web that a normal conversation has, so it can go and do the work and hand you the result. Some to try, with the time changed to suit you:

• Friday review. “Every Friday at 5, look at what I finished and what slipped this week, and suggest one thing to change next week.”
• Breakfast from your fridge. “Every morning at 7:30, ask me for a photo of my fridge and tell me what to make for breakfast.” You reply with the photo in the same conversation.
• A new workout every day. “Every weekday at 7, find me a different 10-minute dumbbell workout online.”
• Learn a little. “Every weekday at 12:30, find me one short Spanish lesson or exercise I haven’t done before.”
• Morning plan. “Every weekday at 8, go through my calendar and tasks and plan my day, with the one thing that matters most at the top.”
• Weekend plans. “Every Friday at 6, find three things to do in my city this weekend, one of them free.”
• Meal plan and shopping list. “Every Monday at 9, plan five easy dinners for the week and add what I need to my Groceries list.”

Think of it as work you would otherwise have to remember to ask for, happening without you asking each time.

One-off runs once at a time you name and is then finished: “remind me about the invoice on the 1st”, “call me at 4 today”. It needs a clock time, so “after my meeting” won’t work on its own. You don’t have to cancel it afterwards.

Recurring keeps a pattern until you change or stop it: daily, weekly on particular days, or monthly on a date. “Every weekday at 8” and “every Friday at 5” are both recurring.

Say it in your own words either way and BrightMind works out which you meant, then confirms it back. If the confirmation says “every” and you meant once, say so and it will fix it.

Repeating automations follow your timezone unless you set one explicitly. When you open BrightMind somewhere new, it picks up your phone’s timezone and moves them there, so your 8am check-in still arrives at 8am. One you pinned to a place (“8am London time”) stays on that time, and a one-off stays at the moment you booked it. Daylight saving doesn’t shift any of them.

An automation reaches you either as a message or as a phone call, and you choose which when you set it up. A scheduled call is an automation whose action is a call, so calls and check-ins live in one list and change the same way. See Scheduled calls for what a call itself is like.

Each automation posts its runs to a conversation, and you choose which:

• The conversation you set it up in. The default for a one-off: it answers in the chat where you asked.
• One conversation of its own. The default for a repeating automation: every run lands under the last one.
• A new conversation each time. For runs that have nothing to do with each other.

Say which when you set it up, or later: “start a new conversation each time”, or “post these here from now on” to move one into the conversation you are in. When it continues a conversation, each run reads what came before, and you can reply to it there.

A conversation an automation posts to shows a clock in Conversations. Scroll up inside it to see which automations post there, and tap one to see what it does and when it runs next. If you delete that conversation, BrightMind asks whether to delete its automations too; kept ones start a new conversation on their next run.

Ask, and check the confirmation:

• “Move my morning check-in to 9.”
• “Pause my Sunday call.”
• “Stop the invoice reminder.”

Pausing keeps the automation and its schedule. It stays paused until you ask BrightMind to resume it, and then it picks up from the next time it’s due. Runs missed while it was paused don’t catch up. Stopping removes it.

Onboarding ends by setting up a daily check-in, a message or a call at a time you pick. That is an ordinary automation, so you can move, pause or stop it in conversation afterwards. If you skipped it, just ask for one.

To walk through onboarding again, open Settings, then Account, then Show onboarding again.

• A message does the work first. It’s a real turn, so it can look at your tasks and your calendar before it says anything, rather than sending a fixed line of text.
• A call rings with the purpose you gave it. The work happens live on the call, with you.
• Silence is allowed. If a message run concludes there is nothing worth saying, it says nothing. You are not meant to come back to a pile of notifications to dismiss.
• Each run that has something to say sends a notification, and the full answer waits in the automation’s conversation. A call automation rings your phone instead.
• Upcoming ones appear on Home on the day they are due.

1. Look in Conversations. Every run with something to say writes there (a repeating automation’s own conversation has a clock), so the result may be waiting even if the notification never showed up.
2. Check that notifications for BrightMind are allowed in your phone settings.
3. Check the automation on Home to confirm the day and time you actually agreed on.
4. Ask BrightMind to list what you have scheduled, in case it was paused or stopped earlier. An automation that fails 5 times in a row is turned off, and asking BrightMind to resume it switches it back on.
5. If the time looks wrong after you traveled, open BrightMind once so it can pick up your new timezone, then check the time on Home.

To test one without waiting, say something like “run my check-in now”.

Still nothing? Email stan@brightmind.club or use Discord from Settings. Telling BrightMind about the problem does not reach the team.

See Scheduled calls for calls specifically, or Home for where upcoming ones show up.