Automate Your Lock Screen: A Daily Time-Progress Wallpaper for 2026

Posted on ClawList.io | Category: Automation

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If you've ever looked at your phone and thought, "Wait, how is it already [month]?"—this project is for you.

Developer @safaricheung shared a clever automation project that turns your phone's lock screen into a daily reality check: a wallpaper that automatically updates every day to show you exactly how much of 2026 has already slipped by. It's a small, elegant piece of automation that sits at the intersection of productivity psychology and developer creativity.

It won't ship as a ready-to-install shortcut, but the actual setup takes about two minutes. Let's walk through what it does, how it works, and why you might want to build something similar—or extend it further.

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What This Project Actually Does

The concept is deceptively simple. Every morning, a script runs on your phone (or a connected device), calculates what percentage of the year has elapsed, generates or updates an image with that information, and sets it as your lock screen wallpaper.

The result: every time you pick up your phone, you're greeted not with a motivational quote or a pretty landscape, but a cold, precise number. Something like:

2026 Progress
━━━━━━━━━━░░░░░░░░░░  42%
Day 153 of 365

It's a passive, ambient reminder of time—which, for anyone managing long-term projects, annual goals, or personal OKRs, is quietly powerful.

This type of automation is sometimes called a "time mirror"—a tool designed not to manage your tasks, but to reflect your relationship with time back at you. For developers and engineers who tend to get heads-down in sprints, it's a useful macro-level anchor.

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How the Automation Works (Technical Breakdown)

The core logic is straightforward enough that you can implement it in any scripting language. Here's the fundamental calculation:

from datetime import date

def year_progress(year: int = 2026) -> dict:
    today = date.today()
    start = date(year, 1, 1)
    end = date(year, 12, 31)
    
    day_of_year = (today - start).days + 1
    total_days = (end - start).days + 1
    percent = round((day_of_year / total_days) * 100, 1)
    
    return {
        "day": day_of_year,
        "total": total_days,
        "percent": percent
    }

Once you have the percentage, you generate an image. On iOS, Scriptable is the most common tool for this—it's a JavaScript runtime that integrates tightly with iOS automation and Shortcuts. On Android, Tasker paired with a plugin like AutoTools handles the image generation and wallpaper-setting side.

A minimal Scriptable implementation might look like this:

// Scriptable (iOS) - Daily Wallpaper Generator
const start = new Date(2026, 0, 1);
const end = new Date(2026, 11, 31);
const today = new Date();

const daysPassed = Math.floor((today - start) / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24)) + 1;
const totalDays = Math.floor((end - start) / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24)) + 1;
const percent = ((daysPassed / totalDays) * 100).toFixed(1);

// Draw to canvas
const w = new DrawContext();
w.size = new Size(1170, 2532); // iPhone resolution
w.opaque = true;
w.setFillColor(Color.black());
w.fillRect(new Rect(0, 0, 1170, 2532));

// Add text
w.setTextColor(Color.white());
w.setFont(Font.boldSystemFont(72));
w.drawTextInRect(`${percent}%`, new Rect(100, 900, 970, 100));

w.setFont(Font.systemFont(36));
w.setTextColor(new Color("#888888"));
w.drawTextInRect(`Day ${daysPassed} of ${totalDays}`, new Rect(100, 1020, 970, 60));

// Save and set as wallpaper
const img = w.getImage();
// Use Shortcuts automation to set as lock screen

The final step—actually setting the wallpaper—typically requires a Shortcuts automation triggered at a fixed time each morning (e.g., 6:00 AM). The shortcut calls the Scriptable script, receives the generated image, and applies it to the lock screen.

The full deployment flow:

1. Install Scriptable (iOS) or Tasker (Android)
2. Drop in the script with your preferred visual style
3. Create a time-based Shortcut or Tasker profile to run it daily
4. Done

No server, no cloud dependency, no subscription.

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Why Developers Love This Kind of Automation

This project resonates strongly in developer and engineer communities for a few specific reasons.

It's a minimal viable automation. The entire system has fewer than 50 lines of logic. There's no database, no API key, no infrastructure to manage. It's a reminder that powerful automation doesn't have to be complex—sometimes the best automations are ones you build in a lunch break and run silently for the rest of the year.

It's highly personal and extensible. The base project is just a starting point. Once the scaffolding is in place, you can layer in:

• Habit streak counters — "Day 47 of your writing streak"
• Project countdowns — "T-minus 23 days to product launch"
• Multi-year comparisons — Show this week vs. the same week last year
• Weather or AQI overlays — Pull live data via a free API
• Pomodoro / focus mode indicators — Shift the wallpaper based on time of day

It bridges ambient awareness with intentional productivity. There's a branch of UX research focused on calm technology—tools that inform you without demanding attention. A lock screen wallpaper is nearly perfect for this: you glance at your phone dozens of times a day, but the wallpaper doesn't interrupt you. It simply updates, silently, and lets you draw your own conclusions.

For anyone doing annual planning, tracking quarterly goals, or just trying to maintain a sense of momentum through the year, that ambient data point can shift how you prioritize your day.

It's a great onboarding project for automation beginners. If you're building your first real automation workflow—whether with Apple Shortcuts, Tasker, n8n, or a home server cron job—this project covers the essential concepts: scheduled triggers, data transformation, output generation, and system integration. It's small enough to finish and satisfying enough to actually use.

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Extending This with AI and OpenClaw Skills

For those building on AI automation platforms, this concept maps neatly onto a scheduled OpenClaw skill. You could define a skill that:

• Fetches the current date
• Computes year progress (and any custom metrics you pass in)
• Calls an image generation API or templates an SVG
• Pushes the result to a webhook, cloud storage bucket, or directly to a connected device

This makes the wallpaper generation shareable and configurable across devices and users—turning a personal script into a deployable automation skill anyone can install and customize.

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Conclusion

The automated year-progress wallpaper is a small project with an outsized psychological effect. It's a daily, passive nudge that keeps you anchored to the bigger picture while you're buried in the details of the day.

More importantly, it's a template for thinking about automation differently—not just as a way to eliminate repetitive work, but as a way to design your environment. The best automations don't just save time; they shape behavior.

Whether you replicate @safaricheung's project exactly, extend it with your own metrics, or use it as inspiration for something entirely different, the underlying principle holds: a two-minute automation, running daily, can compound into something genuinely meaningful over the course of a year.

And right now, you still have most of 2026 left to set one up.

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Original concept by @safaricheung. Published on ClawList.io — your resource hub for AI automation and OpenClaw skills.