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Google Assistant’s new Workday routine can bug you to take care of yourself

Google Assistant’s new Workday routine can bug you to take care of yourself

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It’s easy to forget to stretch and get up for water when we’re all living in a time vortex

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Google is introducing a new Workday routine that makes Google Assistant audibly remind you of calendar events and, notably, to take moments for self-care throughout the day.

Since most of us are still stuck working from home, it can be easy to forget about caring for your physical and mental needs. So in addition to ensuring you make every meeting in that busy calendar, the routine comes configured to remind you to do a few small but important things in between, like getting water and standing up to stretch at different points throughout the day. It’ll also alert you to start wrapping things up with work at the end of the day. You can adjust the content of each alert to your needs, as well as the timing of when they go off.

The routine is rolling out this week, and you’ll be able to enable it through the routines menu in the Google Home app on iOS and Android.

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Google is also expanding the array of smart lightbulbs that can work with the Assistant’s Gentle Sleep and Wake feature, which automatically dims or turns them off depending on the times you set. Previously exclusive to Philips Hue bulbs, it now works with every kind of smart bulb that is compatible with the Google Assistant.