I know, we’re already on iOS 17 and iPhone focus modes have been around since iOS 15. That’s, in other words, two years. Of course I had fun with them back then, although I never thought they were necessary for my type of use. How wrong I was…
My notification center stopped being the iPhone a long time ago and became the Apple Watch. Due to irrelevant circumstances, I went without a watch for more than a week, so the iPhone must have been my center of activity, so I thought of investigating concentration patterns further. Best idea I’ve had in a long time.
Silence please, I’m working
I’m lucky to have a job that not only allows me to use my cell phone, but in some ways requires me to. However, there are also many times when I need to concentrate on a task and cell phone interruptions are very annoying.
There is no such thing as “just in case”. I mean leaving all notifications on in case something urgent happens is absurd to say the least. If something urgent were to happen in my work environment, I have Slack open on my Mac as a communication tool with my colleagues, so I’ll know. If it’s personal, I’m confident that no one will send me a Telegram or WhatsApp message to let me know, but rather they will call me. Fortunately, this has not happened these days.
The fact is that I decided to silence absolutely all notifications and I gained great peace of mind. There are no more unwanted interruptions. Because I love my friend Pepito very much, but while I’m working I don’t care about the latest rumors about his work. My friend Fulanita also has her place in my heart, but the photo of her last trip is never one of my priorities. And yes, mom, I feel good, so I don’t need to report to you every second in detail what I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
So things, my priority in focus mode was to turn off almost all notifications except calls. Which has its bad side of receiving SPAM calls, but I don’t want to limit it to contact calls, because I often receive legitimate calls from numbers that I have not registered (see as an example the medical center, which each every time they call me, they do it with a different telephone extension).
All the limits and points of view I have in concentration mode at work
As I said before, I silence almost all app notifications on the iPhone. Except three: Slack, reminders and calendar. The first for obvious reasons since it is my communication tool at work, while the other two serve to remind me that I have to take care of certain work tasks (in the concentration mode filters, I choose that only professional events appear).
My only iPhone screen when I work
But if there’s anything remarkable about the way I concentrate, it’s that I’m left with a unique and useful screen on the iPhone with widgets. Inspired by what FlorianB says on his blog, I set up a screen where I only have the Reminders and Calendar widgets in view to have a view of my work tasks and events for the current day.
Like apps, I leave only four essential ones in the dock and which I always have in all concentration modes: Spark for email, Safari, Phone and Telegram. As much as I wouldn’t want the latter to be there, he has an explanation.
There is a significant drawback in concentration modes compared to the dock and it will always be the same, in any way. And it’s contradictory because, as we see in my case, Telegram is an application that I try not to use when I’m working, but that I use a lot when I’m in my free time. And since in this second case I always like to have it on hand, I have no other choice than to eat it with potatoes when I have work mode activated.
For free time I also have another mode activated
I have a lot of respect for my bosses and my colleagues (I think so, not because they read me). In fact, they know exactly how to find me outside of work hours. However, if I’ve learned anything over these years, it’s that mental health is largely dependent on disconnecting from work. And since my work environment is teleworking, this is even more important.
For him, When I finish working, I activate another concentration mode directed in the opposite direction from the previous one.. There, I don’t mind getting lost in small talk with friends or being interrupted while I’m lying on the couch or walking my dog. However, it bothers me to come across a Slack message that isn’t addressed to me or, if I’m concerned, is related to an issue that can wait until the next day.
Regarding the home screen, I have it there in view all my main applications with a personal organization which does not have too many particularities either. On the first screen, a small “Reminders” widget next to the apps I use most, while on the second screen I have “Calendar” widgets with personal events, a larger one for “Weather” and the rest of the applications I use less. frequently, classified in files.
The conclusion I ultimately draw from everything is that I’ve managed to separate my work and personal life when it comes to the iPhone in a way that, even if I had felt it, I had never experienced. Therefore, I recommend that everyone try the concentration modes and play with them until they find the modalities that suit their uses and preferences. It’s never too late and if not, tell me.
Cover image | Álvaro García M. with DALL-E 3
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