Welcome to the Streamlined Solopreneur. A show for busy solopreneurs to help you improve your systems and processes so you can build a business while spending your time the way you want.
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I have been on a mission this year to use my phone way, way less than I have been. It started with the year of being present and it got amplified by two things this year. One was reading the anxious generation and the other was going to Disney World with my kids where I barely used my phone and didn't go on social media at all. And it was, it was just lovely.
And so I have spent the last year or so crafting focus modes for my phone. I have an iPhone because, you know, you, you finally sit down to get some work done and your phone buzzes, you get a calendar alert or some other message, or you're in a group chat that is popping off and your phone is buzzing and you want to die.
That's really the power of focus modes for the iPhone, right? It's the ability to control what is distracting you. It's your ability to control the fire hose of information that's coming to you, not allowing the information to control you or your day.
So, I thought today it would be fun for me to walk through my focus modes. We'll talk about what they are and why you should use them, how I'm using them. I will have some screenshots in the show notes to illustrate what my focus modes do and so you can get a picture of all of them and I'll tell you how you can enable them and some nifty things about them. So, let's dive in to what are focus modes.
So I want to be, I am squarely in the Apple ecosystem here. I think Android and Samsung and other platforms have similar features, but I can't speak intelligently to them. So, I will talk high level before really digging into how to kind of do it on the iPhone and what the iPhone can do. So I mean, most of this is going to be just how to leverage your, the features on your technology to work for you.
So first of all, what are focus modes? They're essentially, you know, you probably have seen on your phone if you have an iPhone, like the do not disturb mode, right? Or the reduce interruptions mode where you walk into someplace or at night it goes into like a sleep focus mode. They're custom do not disturb profiles and what they let you do is allow notifications from specific people and Apps so you can allow or silence specific notifications, right?
In my personal focus mode, I silence notifications from work contacts and work apps that is like clients and people I have strictly a work relationship with as well as any work apps that might be on my phone. There aren't a lot, but there are some. And so I don't get for any that I do allow notifications from. In personal focus mode, I don't.
So you can set apps and people who can reach you. You can show what home screen pages are visible. So I don't know if you, you know this, but on the iPhone you can have a number of home screen pages and you can hide specific pages.
And so in certain focus modes I only see certain pages. One example is my fitness focus mode. When I am in that focus mode, I only see a page that has my activity and fitness stats. So I have fitbot and the activity widget and then the apps for Planet Fitness, which is my gym, and a couple of other helpful apps only for those. And I silence all notifications except for the ones from my wife, my mom and my kids schools. Those are the only people who can reach me when I'm at the gym.
And you can choose the context in which you see each of these. So you can trigger focus modes to turn on at a certain time, at a certain location, when you open certain apps. It's really nifty.
So, those are what focus modes are. You would access them by going to settings and then scrolling down to focus and you can create and set focus modes there. You know, let me know at streamlinedfeedback.com, and I can make a video for the YouTube channel if you want to see that. But there are lots of great resources on how to create focus modes and using your iPhone for productivity in general.
So, why should you use focus modes? Well, as solopreneurs, as parents, we're constantly context switching, right? Client calls and deep works and errands and picking up our kids from various places, creating content, doing home chores.
And focus modes let you context switch with intention. So instead of having to fight your phone for the need to concentrate, right. When I'm in deep work, for example, or when I'm recording, right, I have a recording focus mode. And so when I am recording, I don't see notifications because I know if I did I would just lose my train of thought. And so it's the same, you know, it's like the wife, mom, kids, schools, right?
And again, the nice thing about me being fully in the Apple ecosystem is that when I turn my focus mode on on one device. It turns on on all of my devices, including my watch. So my watch isn't buzzing my computer. And so focus modes help me protect my time.
Before we dive into my focus modes, I also want to tell you that there's like a bonus of there are apps that work really well with focus modes. So like calendar mail messages, you can display certain calendars or only certain mailboxes or only certain contacts in certain focus modes.
Third-party apps can plug into this as well. So like Fantastical does this and a couple of others. But I really like this. Like, you can also turn, if you have a newer iPhone, turn off the always on screen, which is cool because I'll do that in my Green zone focus mode.
So in Green Zone, my screen's not on. I can't access anything on it. It's just like my time. It's just time tracking widgets and no notifications can break through except for the important ones, right? So, that's the great thing about focus modes.
There are also like third-party apps that will tap in even further to the focus mode.
So, one example is Screen Time plus. This will lock you out of certain apps based on the Focus mode. And so when I'm in my personal focus mode, for example, I can't open my email app. I'd have to come out of that focus mode to open the email app. This is like, this isn't as strong as the brick, right? Because the brick you have to physically scan. But it's a good reminder like, hey, I shouldn't be using this app right now, right?
And there's a bunch of other apps out there too, but Opal I think is another one. And so, there are a bunch of options out there. Screen Time plus is really simple. It's very affordable. I think I paid for the lifetime. And it's just a great, like a little extra friction when you're in a focus mode, if you haven't bricked your phone or you don't want to brick your phone or you don't have a brick.
So, those are helpful apps.
Like I mentioned before, focus modes can also be activated by time or location. So 6pm every day, my personal focus mode automatically turns on. It's a reminder that I should be done with work if I get to within a certain radius when I drive to the gym. Once I get to the gym, my fitness focus mode turns on and it turns off when I leave the gym. And so I don't even have to think about that.
And then I should also say the night. The really nice thing about focus modes is that you can also change your watch face. So like in my travel focus mode, you know, I have all my travel information on my watch.
In the gym focus mode, I just have the fitness information on my watch. And so really nice way to kind of control, like I said, all my devices.
And then like I said, when you open a specific app, you can also enable a focus mode. There are some apps that work nicely with shortcuts and focus modes on the Mac as well. So, I use ecamm Live to record and ecamm Live taps into this. So when I start recording in ECAMM Live, if I'm not already in a focus mode, it automatically puts me in the recording focus mode, which is great.
So big fan of focus modes on the iPhone. I've already teased some of them. Let me run through all of them for you and I'll kind of tell you how I use a bunch of them.
Do Not Disturb is one of the default ones that comes on the iPhone. This is the simplest form.
Driving is another default one. So this will automatically turn on when you plug it into your car for CarPlay or when you connect via Bluetooth to your car. I'll run through the next.
The next few Fitness Green Zone, Personal, which I think comes default on like out of the box recording, reduce interruptions, which is a new one with Apple Intelligence.
Sleep, which comes out of the box.
Travel and Vacation. I think you can have max 11, maybe you can have max 10 or maybe. Yeah, because I can't create anymore.
Okay. So those are all of my focus modes, the ones I use the most. Fitness, Green Zone, Personal, Recording and Travel.
So vacation's a nice one. It's just, it's usually like the Disney app is really easily reachable there, but it's just like no work apps, just stuff that like with the weather app and Google Maps, anything I might need while I'm on vacation, right? Reading apps, whatever.
Fitness. I kind of explained this one already, but this one is for when I get to the gym. It automatically turns on when I get to the gym. It is a pretty stripped down screen that has like my activity for the day, the Fit Bod widget and then a few apps I find myself accessing during my workout.
Again, Fit Bod Activity. If I'm doing some cardio, the Apple music app and the podcast app, which I don't usually listen to podcasts at the gym though. So those are the things I can access most crucially for that that focus mode.
The fitness focus mode is no apps can send notifications and the only people I'm going to I'm going to refer to it as the core from now on. My wife, my mom, my kids schools are the only people or now my kids school because my youngest is out of daycare now and my babysitter right those core four can reach me at the gym. Nobody else can because I don't want to be bothered at the gym. And so that's the fitness focus mode.
Green zone is even stricter. I can get no notifications on the core. And then I can't access any apps on my phone except for timer. The implication here is I'm not working from my phone. I'm working on my computer and I don't want to be distracted at all by my phone. So, the only thing I can see on my phone is time tracking graphs.
Personal focus mode. There's a lot of nuance in the personal focus mode. There are, you know the only contacts and apps that I actively block are work-related. And again, I'm using Screen Time Plus to block the work related apps.
I also have for each of these like a custom home screen and lock screen. I'll share screens screenshots of those too. With personal it's a picture of my family, little reminder for what I'm, you know, why I'm doing all this.
And my watch changes too to just the time and then a picture from my featured album. My home screen pages will also change slightly here too to include the Yankee score. I always want to check that. Oh actually it changes a bit. It doesn't look like it changes a lot in the screenshot because I'm using the same widget but it does change slightly based on the apps that I like to access in personal focus mode.
So that was fitness green own Personal recording. The only person who can contact me during recording is my wife. I guess the implication is that I won't be recording very long and then the appearance for recording goes in the dark mode which I've been living in now anyway.
Sleep, not a lot of stuff can interrupt me and sleep my family. So, my wife, my parents and my brothers can all contact me like notify me in sleep mode as well as I can allow calls from my favorite contacts which is basically just name them.
And then the apps that can notify me during sleep mode are home Everbridge which is like a local news alerts thing and then my security Camera apps. Those are the things that can alert me in sleep mode. I filter my email address and I can't really access any apps. I usually brick my phone before bed anyway.
Travel is one of the more interesting ones. My people allowed notifications is turned off so like anybody can contact me when I'm in travel mode because I don't generally know who I'm going to need to be contacted by.
And then I do have like a lengthy list of apps that I can allow notifications from but it's not all of them. And I also, am like pretty diligent about like what I'll respond to because travel day, traveling is not necessarily a work free day for me.
And then I do have custom pages. This is one of the screenshots I've included because I do have a custom page with my flighty information, my flight widget from the actual airline, which flight is really just fine for that, the local weather.
And then I usually will switch this up depending on where I'm going. So like I'm traveling to Boise or may have traveled there already by the time this episode comes out. And I will be using Lyft while I'm there. And so the Lyft widget will likely be on the the travel screen then because I'll be in travel mode the whole time. And the Google Maps widget because that's a walking city.
And then I have usually I'll have an Apple note that is the note for wherever I'm traveling to. Cause I like to make sure I have all my confirmation numbers and stuff like there. My Apple watch face is cool for the travel focus mode cause it has the altitude and lighty has some cool Apple watch complications. I like it a lot.
And then finally vacation mode, I have, Gosh. A select group of people who can contact me. Basically my immediate family, my in laws and like a couple of friends who I don't mind hearing from. And then for apps, I silence notifications from basically all the apps at home except for the security apps and any work apps. So I cannot get notifications from from a lot of apps here.
And then again for the vacation mode it's a great picture I have of the Mandalorian at Disney World and picture phone just like some easy to access apps that I'd want and Mickey Mouse as my watch face. And I am aggressively blocking apps with Screen Time Plus.
So that's probably longer than it should have been. Rundown of my focus modes.
I think the important thing for you to take away here is that with focus modes, again, you can control the flow of information. I have used this aggressively. Like, I don't think there's a point in my day where I should not be in a focus mode. I haven't gotten there yet because that's like a tall order. But I think it's something I'd like to work towards.
So, ultimate goal. This isn't about being unreachable, it's about being present. Focus modes allow me to reduce distractions and anxiety for notifications. It allows me to reclaim time and set boundaries. And of course it's not perfect, but it does create enough of a structure and friction for me to stop and really think, like, why am I in this focus mode? What am I supposed to be doing right now?
So, Top Takeaways: Focus modes act as digital boundaries. They help you match. They help your phone match your intentions to each part of your day. Which is why I think I should be in one at any point in the day. You can automate them based on time, location or app. It works with a bunch of other apps.
And again, this is not like using focus modes is not de facto going to make you more productive, but it will make you more present and allow you to focus on what you're doing.
So that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know. Write it in streamlinedfeedback.com. Are you using focus modes? How are you using them? What apps are you using with them? I'd love to hear it, streamlinedfeedback.com.
Thanks so much for listening. And until next time, I hope you find some space in your weekend.