The Smart List Day Alerts strategy can be set up so that it shows you a custom alert in your day view like this:
when a certain Smart List contains an item.
Examples
Social Media mentions
Let's say you don't always want to check Social Media if you got a mention, you can set up an automation with IFTTT or Zapier that adds a task with the label @socialMedia every time you get mentioned. You can make a Smart List based on the @socialMedia tag and get alerted inside Marvin when there is something that needs your reply. This can also be used for emails.
Important emails
Similarly if you are worried you are missing important emails but don't always want to check your emails, you can set this up so that you get an alert when your boss or a key client emails you.
Deadlines
You can also make sure important projects with a deadline are taken care of by alerting you whenever there is a project that is due within the next 14 days that have not been started yet or that have tasks that are not planned/scheduled.
Stale & Procrastinated
This strategy can also be used to help maintain a smooth system. Get alerts when certain tasks/projects reach a certain age or have been procrastinated for more than X days.
Must contain estimates
If your workflow depends on every item having a duration estimate or an end/due date you can make sure every time an item is missing these things you get an alert so you can add it.
Setting it up
To set this strategy up
Create a Smart List you want to get alerted about
Connect the Smart List to an alert
Add a text that shows in the alert
Add an action text for the button
Pick a color for the button (optional)
Add an icon to the button (optional)
Configure if you want the entire alert to be colored or just the button (checkbox at the bottom)
Dismissing the alert
You can dismiss an alert with the x in the top right corner. The alert will show up again
the next day as long as the Smart List still contains an item
as soon as a new item enters the Smart List after you dismissed it
Advanced: Smart Variables
Several text substitutions which allow you to customize text based on the number of items are available for the alert text and button text. $COUNT will be replaced with the number of items, $ARE will be either "is" (for 1 item) or "are", and $S will be empty (for 1 item) or "s". So you could use "There $ARE $COUNT overdue item$S", which will either expand to "There is 1 overdue item" or "There are 10 overdue items".
There is also a text substitution, $DAY, which will tell you how long it's been since you created the smart list alert. For example, this could be used to keep yourself motivated as you do a course: "Procrastination Bootcamp Day 4/30: 3 lessons to complete today".