**Intro**
A lot of my YouTube tutorial videos can seem a little bit theoretical, so in this video
I wanted to give you 10 actual tips for ways that I use my iPhone to be more productive
and get more things done in my working day.
Stick with me until the end of the video, you never know I might be able to give you
a tip that can save you a ton of time in whatever it is that you do.
OK, let’s get into it.
**Use dictation as much as possible.**
Dictation on the iPhone has improved drastically in recent years, so much so that I now try
to use it as much as possible whenever I'm using my iPhone.
I'm a quick typist, but no matter how quick I might be at typing on my iPhone, I'll never
be a match for simply speaking, and that is, of course what dictation allows you to do.
To use dictation on your iPhone simply look for this icon, any time that you're typing.
Tap the button once and begin speaking.
Your iPhone will automatically convert your voice into written text, and even does a good
job of inserting things like punctuation.
It really is that simple.
Once you're finished, you can, of course, add more punctuation in yourself if you wish
and edit the text that you just created.
**Use Siri to remind me to do something at a later date.**
One of the most important aspects of being more productive is remembering to do the things
that you committed to do when you've committed to do them.
My short-term memory is pretty good, but one area where I know I'm particularly weak is
if I put something off for half an hour or until later that day for example, I'm probably
going to forget about it.
In those instances, I use Siri to remind me to do something.
So for example, if I miss a call from my friend Chris, and I know I want to call him back
in half an hour, I would simply trigger Siri and say “remind me to call Chris back in
30 minutes”.
30 minutes later, and my phone will prompt me to make the call.
But this also works contextually across much of your phone.
For example, if I receive an email, and I want to come back to it in an hour, with the
email open like you see here, I could simply say “remind me about this in one hour”,
and my voice assistant will create a reminder, linking right to this email.
**Flag emails as soon as they come through.**
How do you deal with email during the day?
Do you ignore your email inbox altogether, only looking at a time that suits you?
Or do you have your email permanently open, and read emails as soon as they land in your
inbox?
I’m more of the latter, but the problem with that is that, aside from it distracting
me from work, I then often forget to come back and reply to those important emails later
on.
So, what I do instead, is use the flagging function within Mail.
As soon as an email lands in my inbox that I know I want to deal with later on, I flag
it.
I do this by swiping from right to left, and then hitting the flag button.
This puts a small flag icon next to the email, but it also puts it in it’s own flagged
folder, which is then what I’ll use later on, to come back to and deal with the email.
Now this works because, before I walk away from my computer at the end of each working
day, I typically head into Mail and have a look in my flagged email folder, and then
respond to whatever needs responding to, but if you have an email that you know you need
to respond to later, but at a specific time, you could also use the Remind Me function
within Mail.
For this, instead of swiping from right to left, swipe from left to right, and choose
Remind Me, and then choose the date and time that you’d like to be reminded.
The email will then appear at the top of your inbox at the chosen date and time, ready for
you to action.
**Use Spotlight search to open apps quickly, without having to search for them**
A real gift and curse aspect of the iPhone is the sheer number of apps that you can download
for it.
If you’re like me, and you’ve had your iPhone for a long time and have a lot of storage,
you’ve probably amassed a sizeable collection of apps.
You can of course use home screen organisation to put apps into folders and manage them that
way, but it’s still difficult and time consuming to find the app that you want, when you want
it, and this is why I use Spotlight Search instead.
How you access Spotlight Search is going to depend on your phone.
On most devices, you’ll be able to swipe down slightly around the middle of the home
screen to access it that way.
If you’ve got an older phone with a Home button, you might be able to access it by
tapping the Home button on the Home screen, or if you’ve got a phone like mine, where
you can see this little search box on the home screen, just tap there and you’ll be
taken right to Spotlight Search.
Then, let’s say I want to open up the Apple TV app.
I could start typing ‘apple tv’, or I could even just type ‘TV’, and the phone
would return the correct result.
I would then simply tap on the app in the search results to open it.
Once you get into the muscle memory of doing this, it’s extremely quick, and much faster
than searching for apps each time, and also means you can have a much leaner home screen,
but still use lots of apps.
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for a small monthly fee, you’ll get access to all video PDFs moving forward, plus the
growing library of old ones.
Just follow the link in the description of this video that says ‘Become a Channel Member’.
**Create Reminders Templates**
The Reminders app is great, I’ll mention it a few times in this video and for good
reason, but one function that I’ve never really talked about with Reminders, but have
started using, is the creation of Templates.
The idea behind a Reminders template, is that it’s for any tasks that you do on repeat,
that involve a few steps.
So the most obvious example for me is creating videos, I create a lot of videos for the channel,
and they always involve the same steps.
So what I can do, is in the Reminders app, I’ve created a list, as you can see here,
with the different steps that I take each time I create a tutorial video.
I’ll then tap into the ellipsis up here in the upper right of the screen, and choose
Save as Template.
I’ll then give that template a name, and save it.
Then, next time you’re in Reminders and you choose Add List, you can see there’s
an option to choose from a template.
Tap on the template, give the list a name, and you’re done.
This is how I use mine, you could of course use it for anything that you like, packing
for a trip is another example that I think this would be great for, it’s a really handy
little addition to the Reminders app.
**Create and share Reminders lists.**
Following on in the Reminders app for a moment, I also make use of Shared Lists.
A shared list is a list that you share with someone else, where you can both complete
actions on the list and it will be updated in real time.
The example that I always use for this is the actual example that I use in real life
with my wife, and that’s a shared list for shopping.
Whenever we use something up in the house, we add it to our joint shopping list, which
we both have access to.
Then, regardless of which one of us is at the supermarket, we’ve always got the most
up-to-date version of the list available to us, and can grab what we need.
Creating a shared list is really easy.
You start with a Reminders list, like I’ve got here.
Up at the top of the list, you’ve got this square with an arrow pointing out of it, this
is the share button.
Tap on that, then choose how you’d like to share the list.
I find that, here in the UK where Whatsapp is the most popular messaging service, using
Messages seems to work better for this, that’s just my experience, so I would personally
try and use that wherever you can.
I’m going to share this list with a fake contact, just for illustration purposes, the
process is always exactly the same, and once that contact has approved the share request
at their end, you’re now both able to view and edit the list.
If I add something to the list, the other person sees it.
If that person completes a task, the task is removed from both of our lists.
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**Make use of Shared Notes**
I’ve made lots of content about the Notes app here on the channel, and something that
I always mention in those videos is the way in which I use shared notes.
A shared note is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a note that you can access and collaborate
on with other people.
This can either be for you to share information with someone else in a read-only format, or
vice versa, or for you to all work together on something in real time.
A real world example of this is the way in which my wife and I make use of shared notes
to keep track of our working hours during the week.
We both work for ourselves, and we both work from home, and if there are errands that need
to be run, even things like taking our dog out for a walk, we both need to have visibility
of each other’s schedules, and a shared note lets us do this.
A shared note starts with a normal note, like the one that I’ve got on screen now.
To share it with someone, simply tap the share icon in the top of the screen, and choose
how you’d like to share it.
Like I mentioned earlier in the video, I find that sharing via iMessage always seems to
work best here, sharing via Whatsapp or another third party messaging service can be a bit
hit and miss.
Make sure that when you do this, you change this option here from Send Copy to Collaborate,
to ensure that the person you’re inviting can actually work on the note with you, rather
than simply receiving a copy of it.
That’s it.
Once the other person receives the note invitation, and accepts it, they’ll be able to work
on the note alongside you, with changes showing in real time for both of you.
**Make use of Siri Shortcuts**
Again, this is another topic that I’ve covered in much more detail elsewhere on the channel,
in fact I’ll link to all of the mentioned videos in the description of this one, but
the Shortcuts app on your iPhone can be an absolute gem when it comes to saving you time.
So, a shortcut is basically like a macro in Excel, if that means anything to you.
If it doesn’t, don’t worry, basically it’s a list of commands that your iPhone
carries out, in order, at the push of a button.
So in my Shortcuts tutorial video for example, I show you how to create a shortcut where
you press a single button, or speak a command, and your phone will take a screenshot of whatever
you’ve got on your screen, insert it into an email, and then automatically email that
screenshot off to a specific contact.
Multiple processes, all carried out at the push of a single button.
The great thing about Shortcuts is that you can either choose them from the shortcuts
gallery, or you can build your own if you know what you’re doing, or you can download
them from the web, although I should point out that you should always be careful downloading
shortcuts, make sure you really trust the source of them.
So, one that I use all the time now is the brilliant Frames 3.0, I’ll include a link
to it in the description of this video.
This fantastic shortcut allows you to take a screenshot on any of your Apple devices,
your iPhone, Mac, iPad, even your Watch, and then at the touch of a button, wrap that screenshot
perfectly within the frame of the relevant device.
I need screenshots like this for the PDFs that I make for my videos, which you can access
by becoming a channel member by the way, and used to have to make them manually in Canva
or Photoshop, so this is a huge timesaver for me.
**Focus Modes**
The iPhone has a function called Focus Mode, which allows you to pretty much completely
change the way that your iPhone looks and behaves, based on the focus mode that you
choose.
At it’s most basic level, and the way that I use this, you could use this to have a ‘work’
mode and a ‘non work’ mode, but you can have multiple modes, and so you can use this
however you like.
The idea is that, when my phone is in work mode, I can make drastic changes to the device.
I can choose how the home screen looks, which apps are visible, change the wallpaper, and
decide what kind of alerts I want to come through.
To create a Focus mode, head into Settings, and then Focus.
If you’re doing this for the first time, you can see that there are some presets that
you can set up, or you can tap the plus in the upper right for more presets, including
a custom focus mode option.
For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to choose to set up work mode, but note that
the method is the same, regardless of what you choose to do.
On this next screen, you can choose to either block notifications from certain individuals,
or choose to only allow notifications from certain individuals, whatever is quicker and
easier for you.
The same for apps, you can choose to block notifications from specific apps, or only
allow notifications from specific apps.
Below that, you can choose to create a dedicated home screen for this focus mode, set a schedule
for this to switch on and off below that, and add focus filters down at the bottom,
which is getting into a level of detail that’s beyond this video, but do check out my dedicated
tutorial video about focus modes if you’re interested.
Once this is all done, and you want to enable the focus mode that you just created, swipe
down to access control centre, and enable it from there by tapping this Focus button,
and choosing the Focus mode.
**iCloud Keychain**
iCloud Keychain is one of those Apple functions that I absolutely couldn’t live without
these days.
I can’t really stress enough how important it is to use strong, unique password and email
combinations for everything that you login to online, I’ve said it before but I’ll
say it again, if you use the same combination for everything and get hacked once, you’ll
get hacked everywhere.
iCloud keychain is a state of the art password manager that’s baked right into all your
Apple devices, it’s really easy to use, so let me show you how to use it.
Open Settings, then tap on your Apple ID up at the top of the screen, then scroll down
and tap into Passwords and Keychain, and ensure that your device has this enabled.
Then go back to Settings, and choose either Face ID and Passcode or Touch ID and passcode,
depending on what your device offers, and ensure that password autofill is enabled.
Now, each time that you visit a site where you have to input login details, your phone
will securely remember your user ID and password, and this of course means you can quickly input
them next time you visit the site, all while being protected by your phone’s biometrics.
This saves me countless hours of time, plus there’s no way I could remember all those
usernames and passwords.
**End**
So there you go, 10 ways that I use my iPhone to save me time and make me more productive.
What about you, any tips that you’d have included here?
Drop me a comment, and let me know.
And as ever, if you found this video useful, do please consider leaving me a like, and
subscribing to my channel for more content like this in the future.
See you on the next video.