Automating Self-reflection
“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.”
John Dewey, How We Think (1933)
Although my focus is usually on technical training, I occasionally have workshops or trainings on executive skills. These workshops vary from planning, time-management to self-reflection.
During one of these trainings, I received a handout with 30 “intentions” and matching “reflections.” The idea was simple: start the day with one of the intentions to “give direction to your day”. And ending the day with the associated reflection to “enhance self-awareness, personal growth and find strength”.
I liked the concept, especially the idea of finishing the workday with a brief reflection, leaving the work energy behind.
Automating the process
Simply printing the list and planning to read it daily wasn’t realistic. I needed something automatic and persistent, a system that would guide me without extra steps.
So I turned to Home Assistant to send a random intention every morning and send the corresponding reflection in the evening.
Daily intentions
I created an automation in Home Assistant that sends a random intention each morning via mobile notification:
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- alias: "Intention"
description: Send daily intention in the morning.
triggers:
- trigger: time
at: 07:30
actions:
- delay: "{ { (range(120, 720) | random | int) }}"
- variables:
place: 0
- action: notify.mobile_app
data:
message: >-
{ % set intentions = [ / * list of intentions * / ] % }
{ % set intention_of_today = intentions | random % }
Today's intention is: { { intention_of_today }}
title: Daily intention
This worked great, and while debugging I received a randomly chosen intention. However, I also wanted the associated reflection at the end of the day. And this reflection wasn’t random.
Index
The reflections list used the same layout as the intention list, so the reflection associated with the intention was in the same list index.
Finding the index was easy.
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{ % set index = intentions.index(intention_of_today) % }
However, this index needed to be re-used in another automation.
After multiple test I found that storing the index in an input_number helper in the first automation worked best. For this, I used variables inside the automation, and moved the random intention from the message to a variable:
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actions:
- delay: "{ { (range(120, 720)|random|int) }}"
- variables:
intentions: >
{ { [ / * list of intentions * / ] }}
intention_of_today: "{ { intentions | random }}"
place: "{ { intentions.index(intention_of_today) }}"
- action: notify.mobile_app
data:
message: >-
Today's intention is: { { intention_of_today }}
title: Daily intention
- action: input_number.set_value
data_template:
entity_id: input_number.daily_intention_number
value: "{ { place | float }}"
Daily self-reflection
To close off the day I created a second automation that will send the reflection based on the stored index. In this automation I also use variables to store the different values. And based on the previously defined index the appropriate reflection will be picked and send.
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alias: "Reflection"
description: Send daily reflection to phone in the afternoon.
triggers:
- trigger: time
at: "16:30"
actions:
- delay: "{ { (range(120, 720)|random|int) }}"
- variables:
place: "{ { states('input_number.daily_intention_number') | int(0) }}"
reflections: >
{ { [ / * list of reflections * / ] }}
reflection_of_today: "{ { reflections[place] }}"
- action: notify.mobile_app
data:
message: >-
Today's reflection: { { reflection_of_today }}
title: Daily reflection
Visual feedback
To make it more tangible, I displayed the intention on a Home Assistant dashboard, with a background image of the Scheveningen beach:
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- action: input_text.set_value
data_template:
entity_id: input_text.daily_intention
value: "{ { intention_of_today }}"
Fig.1 Intention on dashboard
Reflection
This small automation has made the daily intention/reflection exercise easier to be reminded. And with this helps me to briefly reflect to close the work day.