Like how I like to keep my physical and digital organised, you can imagine that keeping my iPhone tidy is up there on what is a priority to me. As I’ve said in previous blog posts, I’ve wanted to be more mindful with my social media and general smartphone use, so setting it up in a useful way is vital.
Life before my first iPhone
Long before I delved into the Apple ecosystem, I was an avid Samsung user.
Compared to Apple, it was more bloated and more confusing and “cluttered” looking out of the box. I don’t know if this is the case anymore, but this was what I felt when I owned one. I used to spend quite a bit of time looking at ways to simplify it to almost feel like an iPhone (which I couldn’t afford at the time.) Trying out several different launchers and icon packs that fit perfectly together kept me busy for a while.
Switching to Apple in 2017 with my iPhone 7 Plus was the best thing I did in my little smartphone world. I don’t think I could ever use another device after experiencing how nice iPhones are. This is turning into a “Why I love Apple products” blog post, so I’ll quickly move on… 😂
My point was even back when I had an Android phone; I considered myself quite mindful of how cluttered the digital world could get. My obsession with simplicity has been around for a while, and I guess you could say that I was hooked when I found out about minimalism and have been applying the concept to everything I could. 😆
My Minimal Home Screen
Organising Apps
A feature that Apple launched recently in an iOS update was the App Tray. Before you Android users jump in and scream about how this has been seen across multiple Android devices over the years (probably from Day One), yeah, I know, but have you see how nice it is on an iPhone? 😜
When they introduced this, I was so happy because that meant that I could finally delete all my apps from my home screen and only select those I often used. As you can see I put these all in the Dock area in organised folders.
💬 – For messaging, calls and internet browsing
🏋🏻♀️ – My health and fitness folder! Apps range from Calm, Headspace, Youper, Fitness, Clue and more. I’ve also got Spotify in here because I always launch it to listen to my playlists or a podcast when I work out.
💰 – Personal finances! I like keeping an eye on my finances daily. Having it on the dock reminds me to keep track of my spending.
📸 – This has been my least used folder out of the four I have recently; mostly because I don’t take as many photos these days or have the desire to edit them. It’s still there for easy access to look through good ‘ol times.
All the widgets!!
The bulk of my Home Screen is my most used widgets. This is again a relatively new iOS feature (please don’t @ me, Android users!)
- Zero – I recently took up intermittent fasting again, and as someone keen on tracking and documenting things, Zero has been fantastic for that. Seeing at a glance how long I had left in my fast and when the last time I began my fast is handy!
- Trading View – I never thought I would be someone who cared about the stock market or cryptocurrencies, but lockdown happened. For some reason, I’ve been inspired to read more about investing 🤷🏻♀️ Seeing prices at a glance has been fun!
- Calendar – I’ve chosen this to be a bigger widget compared to the others because I wanted the full calendar month to quickly glance at as well as events for the day (which is usually “go to work” these days lol)
- Apple Fitness – I know I already have my Apple Watch to glance at, but it’s always a great reminder to get my hour stand goal in when I often forget about it throughout the day (the most challenging ring to close in my opinion)
- Weather – To regularly find signs of summer
More widgets
Swiping over to the left, I’ve got this screen full of extra widgets that didn’t make it to the main home screen but is still equally personally valuable to keep an eye on.
- AutoSleep – My favourite sleep tracker!
- Charge on my Apple devices – keeps track of my AirPods, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple Pencil… Oh my god, I have too many Apple devices. 😆
- Motivation – A countdown app that gives you a percentage of how long is left in the day, month and year. It’s supposed to be for motivation; sometimes, it helps keeps me off my phone.
- Coinbase – Because TradingView is not enough 😂
- Days – An app that countdowns to events
- Clue – My period tracker
- Authy – Useful for at-a-glance 2FA
- Recent highlights on Google Photos – mostly for travel memories ☺️
Maybe this inspired you to make some changes to how you set-up your phone! We spend so much time on our devices, keeping it organised and catered to work for you (instead of controlling you) is vital maybe even more than ever during the lockdown. How have you set-up your home screens? Please share them with me!
Take care of yourselves 💜
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