Station Duration

Forget about mental math. Take a shortcut.

October 5, 2018

The Station Time Shortcut

This post is about an app for iPhones and iPads.

I use stations all the time. I will have anywhere from 4-8 stations going at a time. I've found a great app that will play a DING when I want students to rotate to the next station. But the problem I keep running into is quickly dividing the time I have remaining in class by the number of stations I have. I can generally do the math in my head, but inevitably I'll either leave too much time at the end or cut groups off of their last activity.

The Shortcuts app had the best solution. Now, I swipe over to my Widgets, tap the Station Time Shortcut, tell it how many stations I want, then let it do it's magic. Automatically, it will figure out how much time I have left in class and tell me how long to make each station.

How to set it up

Make sure you're running iOS 12 or higher. You can find that by going to Settings > General > Software Update.
If you're running iOS 13, Shortcuts comes pre-loaded. If you're on iOS 12, go to the App Store and download the Shortcuts app. You can get it here.
Get the actual shortcut. From your iPhone, click this link.
When you open it in shortcuts, it will initially ask you how long your classes are and what time you stop each class.
Now you're all set. You can access the shortcut through the app or add it to your widgets for quick access. All you need to do now is hit the button and tell it how many stations you have.

*Important: if you run the shortcut outside of a class time, you will get an error.

More about Shortcuts

iOS 12 came with some great updates, but my favorite is the addition of the new Shortcuts app. It allows you to take the things you do every day and make them more simple. I use it daily so I have a single button press to:

Start playing my favorite playlists in Apple Music
Add the song that's playing to a specific playlist
Disable and Enable alarms I use throughout the day (I use a lot of alarms!)