How to turn your phone into a productivity POWERHOUSE!

We’ve all read posts about how our mobile phones are literally sucking the life out of us.  There is a lot to be said on this theme.  Our digital devices are literal distraction factories and this is a really negative thing.  I aim to write a post down the line called “If you do not learn to master your phone, then your phone will become your master” but I’m not writing that this week as I wouldn’t want you all to think I was ‘terribly mysterious’.  Today, I am stepping into all the negativity about our digital devices and commenting on the amazing benefits of these powerhouses in our pockets.  So today – How to turn your phone into a productivity powerhouse.

We could start with the apps we do and don’t have on our phones, but this is going to be a positive post and so I’ll save that for next time.

Think about your Home Screen set up

Our smart phones all have multiple ‘home screens’ these days.  If you are on Android then this is separate from your app drawer where all your apps are and your home screen will be shortcuts and widgets.  When I had an iPhone a few years back, all your apps would be on your home screen – there was no app drawer.

Here is where intentionality kicks in.  You will have one home screen that is your primary home screen.  It’s where he ‘home button’ takes you when you press it.  It’s the place your phone boots up to.  So think about, what is most important to you?  This will dictate what you have on ‘Home Screen 1’.  This is where you want ONLY the apps and widgets that you want to see and use first.

For me, this screen is where I put apps, widgets and short cuts that relate to the bible and devotional stuff, reading and anything to do with health and fitness.  This is where I also put my music, audio book and podcast app as I listen to these during exercise.  One third of this screen is taken up by a Bible verse of the day’ widget.  Partly because of wanting this to be prominent and partly because of deliberately wanting to limit the space available for extra clutter.

These are on my main home screen as they are most important and because they are things I want to see first when I use my phone and I do not want to be distracted by anything else. 

My second home screen is where my main productivity apps are.  Two thirds of this is a calendar widget showing my agenda for the day.  The bottom third contains shortcuts to UpNote, my task manager, an UpNote quick Note widget and some other apps I use.  I also have my browser and camera here.

This is probably the screen I use most frequently throughout the day.

My next screen is where all the rest of my frequent use app shortcuts are.  I try to group similar apps together in rows.  This will have things like Amazon, Cloud Storage apps, office apps, apps I use for managing my blog and website, video apps (note I only have a shortcut to my subscriptions for YouTube, not the app itself) and things to do with managing money.

My next screen is a 50/50 split between 2 widgets – my Focus To-Do List for the day and my Quick Access notes in UpNote.

And that is currently how I use my home screen.  The actual set up is less relevant than the practice of you actually giving it thought and making a plan.  Not obsessing over it for hours, but just thinking ‘what’s important?’, ‘What do I want to see?’, ‘What do I not want to see?’ and ‘what do I want to keep separate from other things?’

I found Taming the phone 2: Putting apps in their place – Forget the Channel (lionelwindsor.net) really prompted me to think all this through.

Think about your dock

Your dock is visible all the time on any home screen. It sits at the bottom in easy reach of either thumb.  This is designed for stuff you want to have ready access to all of the time and quickly.  In my head therefore, there are two types of things that go here.  Communication tools and capture tools.

I have set my phone up so I have 5 spaces in my dock.

Your phone is primarily a communication device – primarily a phone in fact.  So the phone app is first in the dock, on the extreme left.  Next up are my messaging apps.  I try to keep these to a minimum.  I have 4 apps in a folder – Android Messages, Whatsapp, Signal and Edison E-Mail.

The next 3 are all about capture.

In the middle is Braintoss.  If you’ve not heard about Braintoss, it was primarily designed as a GTD Capture tool – one press and you are typing.  Basically, you can type anything and send it to any email address you want to.  By default it will go to the first email address in the list you provide, but a long press on the send button will enable you to choose one of the others you have set up.

It is brilliant, and it is fast.  Need to quickly create a task?  Open Braintoss and send it to your ToDoist inbox email address – or Things 3 or ClickUp etc.  Creating a quick note?  Braintoss it to Evernote or OneNote or any app that allows you to send emails to it.  Or, email yourself.  You can even use it to send voice memos to these email addresses.  It is brilliant, and it is fast and it is completely free.

Then I have quick capture widget to create a new transaction in my finance manager app and finally quick capture to my ToDoist inbox.  Why have this as well as Braintoss?  Braintoss is fast but all you can capture is the basic text which is fine most of the time.  Sometimes I want to add a due date or a tag or whatever to the task I create and you can’t do that with Braintoss.

Use the apps and features of your phone for great effect

There are a plethora of ways to do this.  The clock app is really useful for setting timers if setting a timer for your work is needed.  Or setting a timer for a break, or for a game with your kids or whatever.  There are plenty of fancy apps out there for pomodoro stuff etc.  You don’t really need them – your clock app does the trick.

Notifications are a major source of distraction.  This is often portrayed as a negative thing.  It’s not actually.  This is their purpose.  Notifications are there to get your attention, to distract you, in order to notify you of something.  So, if you decide what is important, what is worth being distracted by and notified of, then they are incredibly useful.  Fine-tuning your notification settings and making effective use of the do not disturb mode on your device is a great way to harness the power of notifications and remove the need to remember to notify yourself.

Your phone will likely have some or all of the following features that can also be used to great effect.  None of this essential but a good combination of them can be really helpful.

1. Setting alarms to remind you to do things
2. A handy torch for rescuing things from under the sofa or fridge
3. Nightlight – changing the colour shades of the screen in the evening to minimise blue light which is proven to harm sleep
4. Bedtime mode – Configurable settings that alter the phone during the hours you should be sleeping.  Mine can turn on do not disturb, make the screen dim and black and white and turn off all internet connections.
5. A handy hotspot for internet out and about if you have sufficient mobile data.
6. Maps to work out where you are, where you are going and how to get there.
7. Connecting to audio devices, even your car, via Bluetooth meaning you can listen to music, audiobooks and podcasts on the go without the need to burn CDs or purchase expensive audio equipment.
8. A quick scanner if you have a good app – I use SwiftScan.

Our phones really can be a productivity powerhouse and help make us effective in every area of life if we set them up for that.  Really it is the same as everything else of this kind.  It makes a wonderful servant and terrible master.  If we are proactive, intentional, thought through and considered, we can set up our phone to maximise the benefits and minimises the risks.  How do you turn your phone into a productivity powerhouse?  That’s how.

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E|F Muses on....

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