I’m not going to tell you should work out, take care of yourself or be more assertive—this should be a given—but I am going to tell you a little story and how I handle my text messaging.

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How it Starts

By day, I’m, well, your typical IT consultant? I help companies design highly available systems and do IT project management. During my normal workday, I’m planning projects, evaluating planned methods and related, on phone calls, reviewing more plans, and, of course, in video meetings (thank you pandemic :/). The work is rewarding—most days—and I’m good at it, but other days I wonder if I want to continue.

Throughout all of this, my LTR enjoys when I send her little text messages throughout the day. The problem I have is, like most guys, I only get really good at my work when I have 2-3 uninterrupted hours to focus on something, and that doesn’t happen nearly as often as I’d like. In addition, when I get really focused, I tend to forget other things, like the people who are important in my life, and I probably don’t take time out to communicate often enough.

So how can I make my LTR (and me indirectly) a little happier?

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Where Are All the Text Message Automation Apps?!?

I figured there must be an app that can help me automate some of my text messaging. I mean I’m in IT and automation is king! Right? I looked, but I couldn’t find the right app for me. There are a few very popular and feature-rich automation apps, but what I wanted to do just seemed too cumbersome when using them.

How can there not be an app for this? There’s an app for everything! In looking further, I noticed Google took a hatchet to overzealous apps in 2019 and, apparently, collateral damage ensued as the app store is bereft of apps that could help me.

I’ve been meaning to try my hand at writing an Android app and, in reviewing the policy changes they noted, I’d just submit a permissions declaration form. I figured no big deal—what I want to do is obvious—and didn’t think much else of it.

I started coding a modern Android app and, as all of its pieces started to come together, I finally had something that could start automating some of my text messaging without crashing too often.

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I Told My LTR I Was Automating Her Text Messages

I figured my LTR would be pissed. For months I’ve been dogfooding the app and now she’ll put two and two together. However, when I told her, she was surprised and, well, impressed. She wanted to know more about the app and how it worked. In the weeks that followed, I asked her why she was okay with me doing this. She told me she knew I was busy with work and the app helped make certain she was on my mind and continued to keep communication high between us.

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While this story continues, the fact of the matter is most men are, or should be, busy “getting shit done” and are not always thinking about their LTR or plates. So why not have your cake and eat it too? In this case, you provide the minimal amount of effort and everyone wins. And this can apply to your mom too.

If you want to read the more detailed version of this story and how I got started with the app, and have some coding chops, you can find it here. Otherwise, you can just get the app from here.

Cheers.