Google’s Digital Wellbeing initiative is something that we all need to appreciate. The new focus mode introduced with Android 10 is a brilliant feature that helps curb the distractions from our phones. Moreover, it can also help create a perfect work-life balance by blocking out the work apps on the phone after work hours. And to help you focus at work, you can even block out other apps such as Instagram or WhatsApp.
This new Digital Wellbeing feature is finally out of its ‘beta’ phase and has even arrived for phones running on Android 9 Pie. If you’re ready to remove distractions from your phone, then check out the steps below to begin using Focus mode on Android.
Setting up Focus mode on Android
Fortunately, there’s no rigorous setup process that you need to go through to get Focus mode running on your device. Here are a couple of things you must to do use begin using the feature.
- Head over to the Digital Wellbeing setting on your Android smartphone.
- This should be located in Settings – Digital Wellbeing.
- Locate the Focus mode option on your device.
- By default, there are two profiles — Work and Me time.
- First off, tap on Work and then tap on Add to select the apps you would use at work. Select only the apps you need to use at work such as Gmail, Calendar, Slack or any other work app you might use.
- Select Done when your app selection is ready.
- Head back to Digital Wellbeing settings and now tap on Me time to select the apps you want to use during your personal time. The key here is only selecting the apps that you’d like to use during your ‘Me time’.
- Again, select Done when you’ve added the apps based on your preference.
Once you’ve set up your work and personal apps, you can now use begin to use focus mode on your Android device.
Check out: Google Launches 5 New Digital Wellbeing Apps in Play Store
How to use the feature on your device
Enabling focus mode on your Android device is fairly easy. There are a couple of ways to enable the feature. The quickest way to enable Focus models via the notification panel. Simply pull down the notification panel and tap on Focus mode. This would bring up the focus mode pop-up and you have to select either work time or me time based on the situation.
You can also enable focus mode by simply heading over to the Digital Wellbeing settings. Then select the focus mode profile you want to enable and tap on Start.
Once selected, you will be able to use only those apps selected in that particular focus mode category. This means if you selected Work mode, then only the work apps you selected would be available to use. Other apps would be grayed out and you will not be able to use them without turning off-focus mode. Of course, to prevent distractions you would not receive notifications as well from the apps that are blocked when focus mode is enabled.
Additionally, you can even create your own category besides the Work time and Me time profiles you get by default. Thus, you could create a new profile and select the apps you want and name the profile accordingly.
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