After years of toying with focus modes on iPhone, I finally found the one¹ I need.
I call it Here.
If you classify yourself as well aware yet mildly disgusted with your phone use, it might be for you as well.
Let me walk you through how to set it up.
- On your iPhone, open Control Center by swiping down from the top right, look for the button that says “Focus”, and click that button (see ² if you have any issues with this).
- Scroll to the bottom and hit the + button to add a new focus.
- Choose Custom
- Choose a color, I recommend Grey or something Neutral. Choose the 📍 Icon (I’m all ears for a better selection, but have found it perfect in practice).
- Hit Customize Focus to finish its creation
- In the Allow Notifications -> People section, choose only those people you think worthy of interrupting you while you are actually Here. Your partner, your children. I don’t get a lot of calls, so to avoid missing that doctor’s call, I’ve set Allow Calls From to Everybody, but if you can get away with limiting this, do it.
- In the Allow Notifications -> Apps section, choose only those apps whose logistical timeliness depend on that notification reaching you. Typically these would be primary messaging apps like Messages, WhatsApp, and Phone.
- Customize Screen by adding a single screen and hide all others. On this screen only include Apps you think you would need if you are out and about and require their utility. Include 1 or two 4x4 widgets if you like, but only if you feel they are things you’d be looking up regularly.
- For the rest of the settings do as you wish, and you’re done!
- Double check what you have on your “Swipe Right, see all the widgets” screen. I keep my Calendar on this widget page which obviously I do need Here occasionally, but I wouldn’t suggest putting anything you really need regularly.
- Turn it on. Be Here.
This is what my one main screen currently looks like while I’m Here:
Only a few days in, I wondered why I didn’t do this years ago. Oh right, I kept struggling with which focus modes I needed, and how I should set them up. I was over complicating it, and strangely enough I was too attached to the attention I was losing.
Enlightened people will argue going extreme and just disabling notifications blanketly, and hiding or deleting any apps you don’t want to use regularly is a better approach. It probably is, and if you’re ready for this — DO IT!
A few notes about this.
Obviously this requires discipline.
- from the screen shots you’ll notice I’ve also updated my main App dock with a single App, the Camera. Not a required step, but since it carries across all focus modes I highly recommend trimming the crap out of it to something you will only engage in based on an event or something that occurred to you Here.
- when you’re sorting plans with a new acquaintance, you need to be disciplined and force those convos to single-purpose apps you feature on your single page / allowed apps. Apps like Instagram that double as messaging and vampiric attention gobbling dopamine-now-pay-later faucets have no place Here.
- you still may need to make time to check your email, IG messages, notification badges. Just be intentional about it! Sunday night before bed; perfect. On the subway to work — not bad! At a crosswalk. No, that’s a terrible place. Make a memo, set a calendar, or just allow yourself to choose to be absorbed by your phone at a specific healthy time, then return Here.
That is all, would love to hear if this is at all interesting to you. Welcome to being Here.
And in the immortal words of Bill Callahan. “I’m new here. Will you show me around”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrAzBLaOn_Q
[1] I actually use sleep mode too, but its always felt like more of an automation that jankily piggybacks on the focus mode system
[2] There is a terrible UX quirk with this button. It is double purpose in that if you click on the Icon (i.e. picture) portion of the button, it toggles your focus mode. But if you click on the text, it gives you the full menu. This is beyond unintuitive and very unapple, I only figured this out in writing this article.
