How To Be Productive On Your Phone

When yous think of productivity, tools such as your trusty laptop, Google Docs, and Slack may come to heed. But I've institute one of my almost critical productivity tools is actually my iPhone.

That'southward non how many people view their iPhone. It's easier to call back of it as a communications tool, an internet portal, a music player, a gateway to social media, and even a gaming device.

Considering of these myriad capabilities, you might even regard your iPhone as a type of anti-productivity machine, bringing lark merely when yous should be getting to piece of work. Too, doesn't it really have too tiny a screen for any serious piece of work?

Simply if yous follow these tips, you'll find that your iPhone can assistance you be more productive throughout the day—adding to the corporeality you tin reach and the quality of that work.

ane. Keep Notes i tap away

Equally a writer, information technology's my job to come up with new and interesting story ideas. For some reason, I detect I generate my best ideas when I go on walks. That'south why the iPhone'due south Notes app is i of my most-used apps. It's the notepad I e'er have with me.

Nonetheless, sometimes I can lose an idea just as speedily as it's popped into my head. That'southward why I've learned to brand opening the Notes app equally quick and easy equally possible. Here'south how to fix things upwardly and then you lot tin can always access a new blank annotation from your lock screen.

In the Settings app, tap Control Center > Customize Controls and then make sure that Notes is listed in the "Include" department. If it isn't, discover it in the "More Controls" department and tap the plus sign. That will put a Notes button in your Command Eye, always just a swipe downwards from the pinnacle of your screen, even if your iPhone is locked. Tapping that Notes button in Control Heart will immediately launch a new blank note on your screen. Now get typing.

2. Enable the ane-handed keyboard

Speaking of typing, typing on a dinky smartphone screen is nowhere about as convenient as entering text on a physical keyboard. This is peculiarly true when y'all're walking with your iPhone and trying to type with both thumbs.

Only iOS 12 and later on include a actually handy characteristic that makes typing easier—and let you lot do it with a single thumb. Beginning, become to Settings and then tap General > Keyboard > 1 Handed Keyboard. On the next screen, select either Left or Right (choose the option based on whether y'all are left- or right-handed).

The next fourth dimension you utilize the keyboard, you'll find it scrunched over to one side of the screen. This means you tin can hit every key with merely i thumb, making your typing much faster and allowing for one-handed use of your iPhone no matter how large its screen is.

3. Plow your keyboard into a trackpad

Even if you're the fastest touchscreen typist in the earth, you'll probably agree it's still easier to type long documents on a computer. That'southward because desktop PCs and laptops take mouse or trackpad input that lets yous swiftly position your cursor anywhere in the document.

Y'all tin reposition the cursor on the iPhone in a certificate by borer anywhere in the text on the screen, but sometimes the cursor doesn't fall in the right place. To brand information technology more precise, you tin turn your iPhone'southward keyboard into a virtual trackpad.

To do this, simply long-press on the spacebar. After a moment, all the keys volition lose their symbols. When this happens—and without moving your finger from the screen—drag your finger around on the keyboard. The cursor will move around in a respective style in the text entry field above.

four. Use text replacement

This concluding textual tip is one I discover invaluable. iOS lets you create text-replacement shortcuts that make typing much faster. Shortcuts can exist any combination of letters or symbols and tin can expand into the words and phrases you blazon most often.

For example, for a while I was writing a lot about devices with edge-to-edge displays. Given how "edge-to-border" needs to exist hyphenated, the phrase was annoyingly deadening to tap out on my iPhone. So I created a text replacement for information technology. At present, whenever I type "e2e," iOS automatically replaces that text with the phrase "edge-to-border."

Other frequent text replacements I use are for my various email addresses. I more often than not utilize three addresses when someone asks me for my e-mail via a bulletin or a web form asks for it. But instead of having to blazon out my email addresses every time (or rely on iOS'south autofill, which generally only wants to use my primary e-mail address), I created the following text-replacement shortcuts:

@@ inserts my personal email address
## inserts my work email address
and $$ inserts my junk e-mail address

To prepare text replacements, in the Settings app, tap General > Keyboards > Text Replacement and and then tap the + button to add together your own. Only a word of communication: Simply pair letters or symbols that wouldn't usually go together, like "TQ." If you don't and use "to" as a text replacement for "tomorrow," for instance, anytime you type the word "to" information technology will turn into "tomorrow," and typing the name "Tom" will requite you "Tomorrowm."

5. Become downward with dictation

Another iPhone productivity feature I apply daily is the dictation feature. This allows me to go thoughts down much faster than if I type them.

You can utilise the iPhone'south dictation capabilities anywhere yous tin type in iOS. To practice so, only tap the microphone button in the lower correct of the keyboard and speak. Tap the keyboard icon that appears onscreen when you are finished dictating.

iOS's dictation reliability has gotten much meliorate over the years and rarely misunderstands a discussion I say. It works exceptionally well when I use my AirPods, which help cut out background racket.

half dozen. Use Spotlight for searching

Tons of people utilize their iPhones to manage their documents, including iWork documents and Google Docs, messages, emails, and the like. Only when they're searching for a certificate, they probable open an app and hunt for it at that place.

In that location's a better manner to search all locations and apps on your iPhone at one time: Just use the Spotlight search feature that's a swipe down from the iPhone's dwelling house screen. Enter whatever search term into Spotlight, such as "meeting," and Spotlight volition instantly search all apps on your phone to find it. It makes tracking downwards important items about instantaneous, even if yous don't remember which app you used to create them.

7. Cover Handoff

Handoff, an excellent characteristic built into both iOS and MacOS, allows yous to begin a task on one device and rapidly selection it up on another. For example, when I'one thousand walking to the office in the morn, I can brainstorm composing an email with story pitches to my editor, so complete information technology later on on my Mac. I don't even have to call back to salve information technology or rifle through my drafts. As soon equally I sit at my Mac, I come across the email or certificate I was just using on my iPhone sitting on the lefthand side of the Dock.

To enable Handoff on your iPhone, become to Settings > General > Handoff.

eight. Download your preferred dictionaries

iOS has a built-in dictionary that yous can access when selecting a word in a text document. This is handy if you want to exist certain the word you're using is the right 1, or to identify the meaning of a word someone else has used. By default, if y'all're in the U.S., iOS volition have the American English dictionary loaded.

But what if you frequently communicate with people in another language and aren't familiar with all the foreign words? If you lot endeavor to define a foreign word with iOS's American English dictionary, information technology only won't return a event.

You lot can load additional dictionaries—dozens of them, if you want—on your iPhone so you'll ever be able to look up a foreign word when you don't know it. To download alternating dictionaries, go to Settings > General > Dictionary and tap on any lexicon you want. Information technology volition automatically download, and a checkmark volition appear by its name telling you it'due south now enabled.

nine. Keep an eye on Screen Time

Are you using your iPhone for Slack, or only slacking off? I like to believe I apply my iPhone for productivity more than often than for play. Merely to brand sure I'm not using it for nonwork stuff during work hours, I keep an eye on Screen Time. This characteristic provides real-time reports on how y'all are using your iPhone, including the times of twenty-four hours yous use it most and the apps you lot employ most oftentimes.

Yous can go to Settings > Screen Time to run across a breakdown of your usage and tell if yous're actually being as productive as yous like to believe you are.

10. Turn on Do Non Disturb

Do Not Disturb is a fantastic feature congenital into iOS that allows you to automatically hibernate notifications during set periods of time. Most people utilise this characteristic in the evening at bedtime or while they are relaxing with their family unit and friends and don't desire work emails pinging them.

But Do Not Disturb tin also help yous exist more productive on your iPhone so you aren't constantly getting pinged with Facebook Upshot invites and WhatsApp messages when you lot are just trying to type out a memo in Google Docs on your train ride into work. That's because Do Not Disturb can be enabled to block annoying notifications while you lot're actively using your iPhone.

To do this, go to Settings > Practice Not Disturb and toggle the top switch to ON (green) to enable it. Then curlicue downwardly and make certain that nether the "Silence" header, "Always" is checked. Yous tin also set a schedule—to turn Exercise Not Disturb on during working hours, for instance. And you can besides switch it on and off by swiping to reveal its Control Center icon, which depicts a crescent moon.