I listen a lot to Jon Acuff on his Podcast, “All It Takes Is A Goal.” His podcast has been inspiring me to be much more dedicated and focused on my goals for 2023. Furthermore, I just read the book Atomic Habit by James Clear. This book gave me a lot of applicable ideas for how to succeed at my goals. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it.
So now, let’s get to the “Apple Focus” settings and how they work. If you have an Apple iPhone, you already have a “Focus” setting. You can select which “Focus” you use by going to the control center and holding the “Focus” switch. Like this:
What you may have noticed on the above video is the several additional “Focus” options that I have on my screen that you don’t have. You can create these by scrolling to the bottom of that list from the Control Center and clicking “+” which is what I did. I created “Morning”, “Hunting”, “Evening”, and tweaked the rest of them. You can set these Focus times to be at certain times of the day and then your Apple Watch and iPhone home screens will change to what you have selected. Here’s some of mine to give you some ideas…
MORNING
My Morning Watch has several Shortcuts that I can access with the tap of a button:
You can also add shortcuts to register your medication intake (which is what I did in my middle button). This will be one of the suggestions that Apple gives you when you assign programs to the buttons. I have this Focus Time set for the first 2 hours of the day that I’m up. I’m able to see what the weather will be, log my weight (one of my goals for the year), log my caffeine intake (another of my goals), and see how much time I spent in bed from my iPhone screen (again another of my goals). I track this time in my journal.
WORK
Work is a “Focus” that is already pre-built. For my watch, I have my ToDo list (I use Todoist), a shortcut for logging water and a shortcut for logging caffeine. I also like to see my calendar for the day so I don’t miss any meetings as well as my activity widget.
HUNTING
For Hunting, Apple Watch has a Compass that you can add as well as wind speed and sunrise/sunset (especially helpful when hunting deer). I also only allow only a few contacts to be able to call me when I’m hunting (a setting you’ll easily find when setting up a “Focus” setting).
NFC Tags
In addition to using Apple’s Focus settings, I also have NFC tags. NFC stands for Near-field communication. These stickers can be programmed to open shortcuts or apps when your phone touches them (also using the iOS shortcuts App). I typically use these for logs or to open my Maps Shortcut when I get into my car. You can purchase these on Amazon.
Productivity Tech Tips 