How to take control of your time with Focus Modes in iOS 15

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Focus on what to do with the new Focus feature in iOS 15 to prevent time-wasting apps at work or to prevent business contacts from reaching you while you’re at home.

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Focus in iOS 15 is a feature that allows you to set different segments of your life related to specific contacts, apps or even Home screens, then switch between them to make sure you can focus on the task at hand without working at home or other areas of your life that are interrupted. While Do Not Disturb mode is typically the way we use our phones without interruption, Focus goes one step further and ensures that the contacts and apps you rely on for a specific part of your life can be used continuously, but other contacts and apps can’t when in a specific mode.

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Focus modes can be easily configured in iOS 15 and allow for a myriad of customizations that can benefit your digital life and ensure that you can, well, focus on what’s important.

Read on and find out more about how Focus can help you get the most out of your work-life balance and regain control of your time.

How to create focus modes

To start using customizing one of the predefined Focus modes or creating your own, go to the following area on your iOS device:

Open the Settings app Select Focus

If this is your first time setting one of the default focus modes (Work, Personal, or Sleep), tap one of the default settings to begin the setup process. You will be guided through the process of setting up allowed contacts, apps, and notifications. You can also tap the “+” button on the focus screen to create a custom named focus mode and follow the setup.

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If you’ve already set a mode, tap it to adjust the settings (Figure A):

Notifications Allowed lets you specify the people and apps that can send you notifications while you’re in this Focus mode. Tap People to add contacts who are already on your device or Apps to add apps that can be used and also receive notifications from while in this mode. Time Sensitive Notifications lets you instantly get notifications from people and apps that aren’t on the lists above if they’re determined to be time sensitive or important. Share Focus State allows you to share the Focus mode set when someone tries to send an iMessage. This status is displayed at the bottom of the message conversation view if the other person is also running iOS 15. Customizing the home screen allows you to set specific pages of apps visible on the home screen in this mode. Hide work app pages while at home or home apps while at work. Options allows you to further customize the mode by enabling delayed delivery of notifications until focus is turned off, dimming the lock screen to distinguish that you are in a focus mode, or hiding all notification badges from the home screen. Activate automatically allows you to specify a time of day, a location or the launch of a specific app to automatically activate the activation of this particular focus mode. Remove Focus removes focus modes that are no longer used.

Figure A

Once initially set up, you can further refine a Focus Mode’s options by tapping it to reveal the settings.

How to switch between focus modes

Now that a Focus mode has been created, it’s time to switch between them or turn it off completely if you wish. To do this, a new Control Center option has been enabled that expands the functionality of the Do Not Disturb button in Control Center.

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Open Control Center, then long press or tap Focus on the Do Not Disturb button (Figure B). This will reveal all configured focus modes, which can then be tapped to toggle them on or off.

Figure B

Tap a Focus mode in the Control Center to turn it on or off completely, or enable Do Not Disturb mode as it was traditionally available to silence all notifications.

If it’s too complicated to enable a focus mode via Control Center, there are other ways:

You can use Siri to enable a particular focus by saying “Enable my focus on work” or another Focus mode name Use the Shortcuts app to create a workflow that will activate a Focus mode using the Set Focus action available in iOS 15

When you set a Focus on a device, all iOS or macOS devices associated with iCloud on the same account will be activated to enable (or disable) the same Focus. For this to work, make sure all your devices have the Share to multiple devices option by following these steps:

Open the Settings app Select Focus Enable the switch named Share on devices

This will keep Focus modes synchronized simultaneously, but will also allow for functionality where enabling a Focus on one device activates it on other devices.

This post refers to iOS 15, the version of iOS announced by Apple, but not yet released. iOS is expected to be released in early Fall 2021. For more information on the release schedule and how to download beta versions, please visit our iOS 15 Cheat Sheet.

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