Focus modes launched last year in 2021 with the release of iOS 15. At the time, the feature felt incomplete to me. Only being able to create allow lists for people and apps to be let through the notifications filter was going to require too much maintenance on my part. After all, the whole point of focus modes is for me to be able to focus on the physical thing I am doing in that moment, not think about how I might miss that important call from the car dealer to deliver some unexpected news…
Fast forward to today, and the public releases of iOS 16, iPadOS 16, watchOS 9, and macOS Ventura are now installed on all my devices. The significance here is that all the improvements brought to the feature are available to me no matter my use context. Below I will highlight some of the tricks I discovered that make this feature work for me. As usual, please do not read this as though I am suggesting this should work for you as well. I will work through the list in the order they appear in the Settings app (alphabetical)
First up, plain old Do Not Disturb
This one is unchanged from how it worked before Focus modes were introduced. Some notable settings are Allow Repeated Calls is enabled but Time Sensitive Notifications are disabled.
Second, Fitness
Same as above, except Time Sensitive Notifications are enabled. This Focus is also scheduled to turn on anytime I start a workout on my Apple Watch or Fitness+ workout on my iPhone.
Lucky number Three, Personal
Lets get fancy. This Focus mode has no people silenced (this will make more sense shortly), and work apps are silenced (Teams, Duo). This is scheduled for all times that are not Work or Sleep. Additionally, I have Focus Filters configured so I do not see work mail or calendar events.
Fourth, Reading
Identical to Fitness, except this is enabled when I am in the Apple Books app (with the exception of using said app in CarPlay).
Fifth, Sleep
Zzzzzz
Sixth, Work
This took a while to get right. I did have to build quite a list of regular contacts to silence while in my work focus. Family members and friends. The list is not comprehensive, but it does consist of people who message me on a regular weekly basis. When it comes to apps, I have set an allow list for all my work-related apps on iOS and macOS. Interestingly, this is the only focus that has a custom Home and Lock Screen set, with some work-related calendar and reminders widgets. This Focus is scheduled to turn on during my regular work hours, or if I am at our office. When it comes to Filters I found only filtering to my work inbox worked best. Filtering out personal calendar events did not allow me to mentally plan for after-work plans.
I hope this isn’t too much, but what I was hoping to highlight in this post was my realization that despite all of the options being available in all the different default Focus modes, you do not have to configure every single one. I don’t have a Lock/Home screen tied to my personal, because if I did then it wouldn’t be allowed to be the same for any other Focus modes. I realized the only time I need such a strict context switch was when I was at work.
One last little note I wanted to mention was about using DND on a Mac. Since Apple fixed the keyboards, they replaced three of the function row keys with the Spotlight, Dictation, and DND buttons. For a few years now I have had this new keyboard, but only month or so ago have I started to use them (I honestly forgot they were there). Now when I jump into a Teams meeting or a call, I smash that F5 key to drop myself into DND so I can give the other person/people my full attention. Dictation on my Mac is also really fast. I might actually use that for drafting these posts more in the future.
