The iPhone is a powerful tool, but with great power comes great procrastination and distraction. It’s tricky to clean your email when YouTube beckons. These productivity tips will clear some of the clutter and diminish distractions, allowing you to get more done in less time.
1 Use Focus to Silence Apps for Fewer Distractions
If there’s one takeaway, it’s that you should be using Focus on your iPhone. Focus minimizes distractions like notifications and phone calls; it’s like an advanced version of Do Not Disturb. It applies multiple settings with a single button, and you can create different modes depending on your needs. Each mode specifies which apps can be used and who can contact you, and a different wallpaper and background are set to indicate the active mode.
You can schedule a Focus mode based on time, location, or app usage, and it can sync across Apple devices. For example, when recording a video for my YouTube channel, I switch on a Focus that turns off notifications whenever my teleprompter software launches. Or when writing, I use a Focus that disables Safari, blocks messages from everyone except my family, and customizes my home screen so that only essential apps like Notes are visible.
To set up Focus and see what’s possible, go to Settings > Focus on your iPhone.
2 Copy Information Between Devices With Universal Clipboard
An excellent Apple ecosystem benefit is Universal Clipboard, a hassle-free way to copy something on one Apple device and paste it to another. It’s perfect for URLs, long strings of text, and images.
Universal Clipboard requires Handoff enabled on each device you want to copy and paste between. You also need to be signed into the same Apple Account. On the iPhone or iPad, that setting is located at Settings > General > Airplay & Continuity. On Mac, it’s located in System Settings > General > AirDrop & Handoff.
Once Handoff is enabled, you can copy text or an image on one device, switch to another, and paste.
3 Launch Apps and Shortcuts With a Single Button
The iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 series phones include the Action button, found on the left side where the mute switch used to be. The Action button can be set to perform multiple functions.
The default is to use the Action button for muting, but it can also be set to open the camera, record a note, launch a Shortcut, open Translate, and more. You can also change Focus modes with the Action button.
To configure it, go to Settings > Action Button.
The iPhone’s Live Text feature automatically extracts text from images, allowing you to copy it. It works with any photo on your iPhone and can even detect text directly in the Camera app, including handwriting.
To use Live Text, open the Camera app and point it at anything with text. A small icon resembling lines of text with brackets will appear at the bottom right. Tap this icon to highlight all the detected text. You can copy sections or all of it and even translate foreign text to your native language. URLs in the detected text can be tapped to open in Safari.
Live Text is especially powerful when used with Universal Clipboard because you can quickly take a photo on your iPhone, then paste the text within it on your Mac.
5 Scan QR Codes Quickly With the Camera App
Many QR code apps are available, but you don’t need them; the iPhone has one built in.
Launch the Camera app and point at a QR code. It highlights the QR code and displays the URL. Tap that link to jump to the QR code destination automatically.
6 Create Digital Copies of Any Document
No scanner? No problem. The Notes app on iOS can help.
Open Notes, select the three dots in a circle at the top of the screen, and then tap “Scan”. Point the camera at a document, and Notes automatically snaps a photo.
Notes has many other tricks up its sleeve, all of which are productivity boosts in themselves.
You can also scan documents directly into the Files app, if you prefer, by opening the menu in the top right corner and select “Scan Documents.”
7 Use the One-Handed Keyboard for Easier Typing
If you’ve ever found yourself trying to text while holding something in one of your hands, you know how hard it is to type.
Apple includes keyboard modes to address this issue and to help improve accessibility for those with physiological hand issues. One mode slides the keyboard to the right, and one slides it to the left.
To access these, open your keyboard and press and hold the button in the bottom-left. If you’re using more than one language keyboard, the icon will be a flag, but by default, the button looks like an emoji.
You will see icons for three keyboards in a row. These are left-, center-, and right-aligned respectively.
8 Start Swipe Typing to Increase Your Texting Speed
The iOS keyboard includes a swipe feature to make one-handed typing even easier. Instead of pressing each key, you can slide your finger across the keyboard from letter to letter. Some people find this less accurate than typing, while others find the swipe keyboard much faster and more accurate.
9 Go Hands-Free and Dictate Your Writing
If you don’t feel like typing, you can turn to Dictation. Dictation is available anywhere the keyboard is used, and is triggered by pressing the microphone button in the bottom right.
If Dictation isn’t enabled, go to Settings > General > Keyboard to turn it on.
The iPhone is a powerful device, and it’s nearly impossible to know all the productivity features. There’s so much more that the iPhone can do to help you get more done, and mastering just a few advanced features can save you minutes or hours every day.
