**Using Focus Modes with Shortcuts**

For this tutorial, you can either play and pause if it's going too fast or I'll try to write out the steps individually down in the description. First things first, you're going to want to download some wallpapers that you're going to want to use for all your different focus modes and home screens. If you're wondering where I got the ones featured in this video, I got them from Canoopsy.Media.

Next hop into the Photos app and find one of your wallpapers that you want to use tap on the share button and then add it to an album and name the album something you're easily going to be able to remember or find once we get into the shortcuts app. In my case, I did writing focus photo editing focus things like that.

Open up your settings app and tap on Focus and here either create or make sure you've already got set up all your focus modes that they're ready to go and that would include custom home screens if that's something that you want to use. After that we're going to open up our shortcuts app and instead of going to the Gallery we're going to tap on Automation and we're going to create a new personal automation so tap on that plus the top of the screen and then go ahead and create personal automation.

**Setting Up Personal Automation**

and then when the new automation box pops up scroll down and find the focus that you want to edit on the next screen hit when turning on and on the next screen hit the add action button and then what you want to do is search for and select the find photos action. Once you've got that selected go ahead and tap on add filter and then you're going to change the album that shortcuts is going to search for to the album name that you created for each particular focus in my example here I've got my writing focus album selected.

**Searching for Apps and Actions**

Once you're done with that look at the search for apps and actions bar and then you're going to want to search for and select the set wallpaper action. All right so now you've got a find photos action that looks for a specific album which should have the wallpaper that you stashed inside and that's followed by the set wallpaper action and then click on that little arrow you see there and make sure that you turn off the show preview toggle because when you run this action you don't need to get a preview you just want it to happen go ahead and tap on next.

**Finalizing the Automation**

and then the last thing you want to do is toggle off the ask before running button because again when you run your shortcut and this action hits you don't want it to generate a pop-up you just want it to seamlessly happen so tap on done get your widget set up. Now when you tap on one of those shortcuts it's going to switch to the home screen that you wanted it's going to select that right focus mode and it's also going to eventually it takes a minute to run sometimes change your wallpaper background as well pretty cool right now.

**Setting Up a Widget**

One thing that I've done is I've kept a widget with those shortcuts in the same spot no matter which home screen I actually end up switching to so that just helps it keep consistent and if I want to switch in between any of these I'm just waiting for it to load here then I can actually do that from the same location all right that's how that works.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey it's chris if you want to use ipad os like a productivity rockstar you're going to like today's video that's because we're talking about productive widget setups productive shortcut setups and productive focus modes among other things so this should be fun but make sure to let me know which part of the video is your favorite by leaving me a comment with the timestamp down in the description so this is my default work home screen setup and as you can see over on the left i've got three widget stacks jam-packed full of information and useful shortcuts and then over on the right i've just got a bunch of the apps that i use the most throughout a typical work day this is the home screen that i start things off with but when i'm getting deep into a certain type of work like maybe writing i've set up different home screens and different workflows using focus modes so i can have just the apps and information available that i need to accomplish whatever the task is with no distractions so let me jump back into my default mode here and as you can see it takes a second but the background the wallpaper actually changes along with my focus modes and the reason that i set things up that way is so i can kind of get in a different headspace depending on the task so if i pop over into my photo editing home screen in focus mode you'll see that it changes from orange to black and if i pop over to design that's going to give me a whole different set of apps i try to keep the widgets a little bit the same but it's also going to switch that background up eventually again it takes just a second to a totally different color as well and if you stick around to the end of the video i'll give you a quick tutorial on how to set up those changing wallpapers with custom home screens using shortcuts and focus modes but first let me tell you a little bit about some of my favorite widgets one of my favorite ipad widgets is the countdown widget which will let you input dates and labels for several events in order to see how many days there are until something happens which is a great way to just be able to glance at your home screen and see what's coming up where things fit in the macro big picture because as we all know there's nothing more productivity enhancing than knowing there's a deadline creeping up on you you can change the color of the widget you can change whether or not it repeats and how often you can stay what happens after it counts down to zero basically it's awesome as you can see now streaks is a habit tracking app that i've been a fan of for many years i've tried several over the years and this one keeps bringing me back because they've got such a great feature set and they've also got a really great widget basically what's so powerful here is that it lets you stay on top of the important habits the things that you need to repeat and never miss both in your work and your personal life and you can see here i've got some content creation related habits i can tap on those and i can complete them you get that cheery little chime that lets you know good job and if you don't have the widget here you're either having to look at your watch or your iphone it's just not as convenient this just puts it right in front of you now i don't know if you're familiar with andy.works and his not boring apps they've got an awesome calculator a weather app they've got a habit tracker as well but what i'm interested in showing you is this orange widget here that has the 5 15 and 30. it's a timer widget now the timer app itself is very straightforward you just scroll through and pick how long you need to set the timer for and then tap it and it starts counting down it's just visual it's interesting and what's cool is you can have it open and slide over while you're doing something as well but what's even more useful is being able to control those timers really quickly from this widget now here's an interesting widget for you it's the play save video watch later widget and what it does is let you bookmark youtube videos that you want to watch later but unlike youtube's watch later function it will stick them in this app stick them in this widget so you can access them whenever you want because sometimes i just like to work while i'm watching or listening to some kind of a live concert or something in the background and this just makes it super easy to be able to do that now i'm the type of person that still uses sticky notes all over the place and i like the idea of having a digital sticky note right on my screen so i've got one here and this is just the actual post-it note app and widget and here i can actually leave myself a note like remember to do something or sometimes i'll just put a quote like i got here an edison quote right that's a good quote tends to motivate me if you want some motivation for yourself you can check out my five ways to earn six figures with an ipad video a lot of good feedback from people there but the app is great if you've never used it you can come in here you can change the paper color to whatever you know fits best with what you're doing and then in order to get it to appear in your widget all you have to do is mark it as a favorite and now all of a sudden your desk is less cluttered because you got the digital sticky notes then under the sticky note i've got some apple music stuff hiding along with my recent files and i like to keep those out of the way because it just looks too cluttered otherwise but this way at least they're still on deck like if i need them i can still get to them really quick all right so let me switch over to my writing workspace and as i'm waiting for the color to change here for my new wallpaper to load in i know i just covered this widget here that i'm pointing to in my recent video cool new ipad apps you've never heard of but i can't not mention the now playing widget which listens for any music that might be playing in the speakers in your space and then tells you what the artisan track is which is really useful if you're listening to a radio station and there's some new stuff and you don't know who's playing and i gotta say too i know that the paper like is really meant for enhancing your apple pencil experience but i love it also just because it feels better for my fingers i don't really love the way that the ipad screen feels without a paper like on it it's crazy now this isn't an apps video but one thing i just want to point out is there's a few web services or web apps that i use that i rely on for my productivity that don't have proper apps yet in the app store and those are my mind jasper and typefully but as you can see i've added some website shortcuts here on my home screen they look like they're regular apps if you're new around here the my mind app is where i store everything important that i know i'm gonna have to remember because it has such a powerful search jasper of course is the ai writing assistant that i'm constantly raving about because it can do things like summarize and rephrase text for you it can help explain complicated ideas at a fifth grade level and it can even write for you all of that stuff and lots more with just a click it's insane and then typefully here it's the best twitter thread maker with analytics with a ton of useful features that will help you grow your twitter presence now we haven't even gotten to my full shortcut setup i haven't even talked to you yet about my doc because i've tweaked a few things there but hopefully you've already discovered a thing or two that will help you get more out of your ipad investment or your future ipad investment if so how about a like and while you're at it why not hit subscribe too because there's lots more where this came from now sometimes restructuring things is just necessary and that's really what we've been talking about in this video restructuring your ipad's home screen to be more productive but let me take a quick minute and talk about restructuring your portfolio which has never been more difficult or more crucial why well inflation's at its highest point in 40 years okay the fed is phasing in aggressive monetary tightening and top firms are predicting stock market returns of under five percent until 2035. so what are you supposed to do well subscribers know i've been advocating for alternatives for a while now like maybe you caught my crypto and web3 for beginners course for instance because like a recent jpmorgan report says alternative assets are no longer optional so in light of this new normal here there are some new platforms that have popped up to give you and i access to new asset classes and one of them seems like an absolute no-brainer it's called masterworks masterworks has absolutely solidified itself as the platform for investing in contemporary art they let you access their exclusive investments from names like banksy monet and other iconic artists for just a fraction of what the billionaires are paying to purchase because i'm not sure if you realize this but roughly two-thirds of billionaires have allocated between 10 and 30 percent of their overall portfolios to art in part to diversify but also because it's a natural inflation hedge after all contemporary art prices have outpaced the s p 500's total return by 164 percent from 1995 to 2021 and they've also exhibited the lowest correlation to equities of nearly any asset class since 2020 masterworks has sold three paintings with each returning over 30 percent net irr to investors and their new offerings usually sell out in hours 30 plus percent that's wild if you want to get in on it early all you have to do is go to masterworks.io create an account check out what they have and invest in their offerings and if you want to you can skip the waitlist by using the link down in the description back to the video all right let's talk about these shortcuts i've got set up here in the top left corner of my screen i've got three shortcuts widgets stacked on top of each other the first stack is all about saving me just a little bit of time every day by giving me access to actions that i take frequently throughout the day things like creating a new reminder or just starting a new note or writing an email all things that i would normally have to open up an app and then tap around a few times in order to do now if you want to quickly figure out what shortcuts are available for the apps that you use most often open up shortcuts tap on that plus icon up at the top of the screen then tap on apps over on the top right and then from there you can just look over the list of the apps that you have installed and find one that you might want to see what shortcuts are available for and add a shortcut really simply the other shortcut i've got in this particular widget is the split screen two apps shortcut which when run will open up a split screen in my case with apple notes over on the left and then safari over on the right because that's my research setup and i use it all the time but you can actually go in and choose which two apps you want to have open and even the ratio of screen that each one takes up now that shortcut's actually available in the shortcuts gallery so you can go in there and scroll around and see what else there is that you might be interested in now i've got three shortcuts widgets stacked on top of each other here and underneath that one i've got one dedicated to apple music so i've got that one set up with some quick access to some playlists and radio stations that i like to listen to while i'm working but if you want to know what shortcuts work with apple music you can put in your own widget like this open up shortcuts search for music and check out the explore apple music section and you can do play a playlist or play more from an artist player pause the album now in order to get your shortcuts to appear in their own widget stack like i've got set up here this is three different widgets all stacked together you're gonna have to go into shortcuts and you're gonna have to create some folders and that's what you're seeing in this widget stack here and then you can change what shows up by saying edit shortcuts and then changing which folder is actually showing all right so let me give you a quick tutorial on how i'm using focus modes with shortcuts in order to not just switch home screens but also change the wallpaper as well now for a tutorial like this you can either just play and pause stuff if it's going too fast or i'll try to write out the steps individually down in the description so first things first you're going to want to download some wallpapers that you're going to want to use for all your different focus modes and home screens and if you're wondering where i got the ones featured in this video i got them from canoopsy.media next hop into the photos app find one of your wallpapers that you want to use tap on the share button and then add it to an album and name the album something you're easily going to be able to remember or find once we get into the shortcuts app in my case i did writing focus photo editing focus things like that next open up your settings app and tap on focus and here either create or make sure you've already got set up all your focus modes that they're ready to go and that would include custom home screens if that's something that you want to use after that we're going to open up our shortcuts app and instead of going to the gallery we're going to tap on automation and we're going to create a new personal automation so tap on that plus the top of the screen and then go ahead and create personal automation and then when the new automation box pops up scroll down and find the focus that you want to edit on the next screen hit when turning on and on the next screen hit the add action button and then what you want to do is search for and select the find photos action once you've got that selected go ahead and tap on add filter and then you're going to change the album that shortcuts is going to search for to the album name that you created for each particular focus so in my example here i've got my writing focus album selected once you're done with that look at the search for apps and actions bar and then you're going to want to search for and select the set wallpaper action all right so now you've got a find photos action that looks for a specific album which should have the wallpaper that you stashed inside and that's followed by the set wallpaper action and then click on that little arrow you see there and make sure that you turn off the show preview toggle because when you run this action you don't need to get a preview you just want it to happen go ahead and tap on next and then the last thing you want to do is toggle off the ask before running button because again when you run your shortcut and this action hits you don't want it to generate a pop-up you just want it to seamlessly happen so tap on done get your widget set up and now when you tap on one of those shortcuts it's going to switch to the home screen that you wanted it's going to select that right focus mode and it's also going to eventually it takes a minute to run sometimes change your wallpaper background as well pretty cool right now one thing that i've done is i've kept a widget with those shortcuts in the same spot no matter which home screen i actually end up switching to so that just helps it keep consistent and if i want to switch in between any of these i'm just waiting for it to load here then i can actually do that from the same location all right that's how that works i'm almost done i just want to tell you about how i've got my dock set up because i did make a couple of tweaks there as well because as you can see i like to keep the dock nice and minimal don't like to over stuff it especially because i got the app library right here on the end of the dock so if you go into settings and then tap on home screen and dock you'll see i've got show suggested and recent apps in doc toggled off and the reason is i just don't want to have all the clutter of recently opened apps over on the right side there and also i can just search and drag an app into split screen mode really easily that way so i feel like i don't really need those but your mileage will vary alright wow i feel like that was a pretty action-packed video hopefully you found something that you liked if you did i'd really appreciate if you dropped me a time stamp down in the comments letting me know what your favorite part of the video was or what was most useful to you also don't forget we got a podcast you can subscribe to it's the daily tech daily tekk podcast and your favorite podcasting app we got a clips channel you can check out fresh new content uploaded there every week as well and i'll catch you guys in the next video laterhey it's chris if you want to use ipad os like a productivity rockstar you're going to like today's video that's because we're talking about productive widget setups productive shortcut setups and productive focus modes among other things so this should be fun but make sure to let me know which part of the video is your favorite by leaving me a comment with the timestamp down in the description so this is my default work home screen setup and as you can see over on the left i've got three widget stacks jam-packed full of information and useful shortcuts and then over on the right i've just got a bunch of the apps that i use the most throughout a typical work day this is the home screen that i start things off with but when i'm getting deep into a certain type of work like maybe writing i've set up different home screens and different workflows using focus modes so i can have just the apps and information available that i need to accomplish whatever the task is with no distractions so let me jump back into my default mode here and as you can see it takes a second but the background the wallpaper actually changes along with my focus modes and the reason that i set things up that way is so i can kind of get in a different headspace depending on the task so if i pop over into my photo editing home screen in focus mode you'll see that it changes from orange to black and if i pop over to design that's going to give me a whole different set of apps i try to keep the widgets a little bit the same but it's also going to switch that background up eventually again it takes just a second to a totally different color as well and if you stick around to the end of the video i'll give you a quick tutorial on how to set up those changing wallpapers with custom home screens using shortcuts and focus modes but first let me tell you a little bit about some of my favorite widgets one of my favorite ipad widgets is the countdown widget which will let you input dates and labels for several events in order to see how many days there are until something happens which is a great way to just be able to glance at your home screen and see what's coming up where things fit in the macro big picture because as we all know there's nothing more productivity enhancing than knowing there's a deadline creeping up on you you can change the color of the widget you can change whether or not it repeats and how often you can stay what happens after it counts down to zero basically it's awesome as you can see now streaks is a habit tracking app that i've been a fan of for many years i've tried several over the years and this one keeps bringing me back because they've got such a great feature set and they've also got a really great widget basically what's so powerful here is that it lets you stay on top of the important habits the things that you need to repeat and never miss both in your work and your personal life and you can see here i've got some content creation related habits i can tap on those and i can complete them you get that cheery little chime that lets you know good job and if you don't have the widget here you're either having to look at your watch or your iphone it's just not as convenient this just puts it right in front of you now i don't know if you're familiar with andy.works and his not boring apps they've got an awesome calculator a weather app they've got a habit tracker as well but what i'm interested in showing you is this orange widget here that has the 5 15 and 30. it's a timer widget now the timer app itself is very straightforward you just scroll through and pick how long you need to set the timer for and then tap it and it starts counting down it's just visual it's interesting and what's cool is you can have it open and slide over while you're doing something as well but what's even more useful is being able to control those timers really quickly from this widget now here's an interesting widget for you it's the play save video watch later widget and what it does is let you bookmark youtube videos that you want to watch later but unlike youtube's watch later function it will stick them in this app stick them in this widget so you can access them whenever you want because sometimes i just like to work while i'm watching or listening to some kind of a live concert or something in the background and this just makes it super easy to be able to do that now i'm the type of person that still uses sticky notes all over the place and i like the idea of having a digital sticky note right on my screen so i've got one here and this is just the actual post-it note app and widget and here i can actually leave myself a note like remember to do something or sometimes i'll just put a quote like i got here an edison quote right that's a good quote tends to motivate me if you want some motivation for yourself you can check out my five ways to earn six figures with an ipad video a lot of good feedback from people there but the app is great if you've never used it you can come in here you can change the paper color to whatever you know fits best with what you're doing and then in order to get it to appear in your widget all you have to do is mark it as a favorite and now all of a sudden your desk is less cluttered because you got the digital sticky notes then under the sticky note i've got some apple music stuff hiding along with my recent files and i like to keep those out of the way because it just looks too cluttered otherwise but this way at least they're still on deck like if i need them i can still get to them really quick all right so let me switch over to my writing workspace and as i'm waiting for the color to change here for my new wallpaper to load in i know i just covered this widget here that i'm pointing to in my recent video cool new ipad apps you've never heard of but i can't not mention the now playing widget which listens for any music that might be playing in the speakers in your space and then tells you what the artisan track is which is really useful if you're listening to a radio station and there's some new stuff and you don't know who's playing and i gotta say too i know that the paper like is really meant for enhancing your apple pencil experience but i love it also just because it feels better for my fingers i don't really love the way that the ipad screen feels without a paper like on it it's crazy now this isn't an apps video but one thing i just want to point out is there's a few web services or web apps that i use that i rely on for my productivity that don't have proper apps yet in the app store and those are my mind jasper and typefully but as you can see i've added some website shortcuts here on my home screen they look like they're regular apps if you're new around here the my mind app is where i store everything important that i know i'm gonna have to remember because it has such a powerful search jasper of course is the ai writing assistant that i'm constantly raving about because it can do things like summarize and rephrase text for you it can help explain complicated ideas at a fifth grade level and it can even write for you all of that stuff and lots more with just a click it's insane and then typefully here it's the best twitter thread maker with analytics with a ton of useful features that will help you grow your twitter presence now we haven't even gotten to my full shortcut setup i haven't even talked to you yet about my doc because i've tweaked a few things there but hopefully you've already discovered a thing or two that will help you get more out of your ipad investment or your future ipad investment if so how about a like and while you're at it why not hit subscribe too because there's lots more where this came from now sometimes restructuring things is just necessary and that's really what we've been talking about in this video restructuring your ipad's home screen to be more productive but let me take a quick minute and talk about restructuring your portfolio which has never been more difficult or more crucial why well inflation's at its highest point in 40 years okay the fed is phasing in aggressive monetary tightening and top firms are predicting stock market returns of under five percent until 2035. so what are you supposed to do well subscribers know i've been advocating for alternatives for a while now like maybe you caught my crypto and web3 for beginners course for instance because like a recent jpmorgan report says alternative assets are no longer optional so in light of this new normal here there are some new platforms that have popped up to give you and i access to new asset classes and one of them seems like an absolute no-brainer it's called masterworks masterworks has absolutely solidified itself as the platform for investing in contemporary art they let you access their exclusive investments from names like banksy monet and other iconic artists for just a fraction of what the billionaires are paying to purchase because i'm not sure if you realize this but roughly two-thirds of billionaires have allocated between 10 and 30 percent of their overall portfolios to art in part to diversify but also because it's a natural inflation hedge after all contemporary art prices have outpaced the s p 500's total return by 164 percent from 1995 to 2021 and they've also exhibited the lowest correlation to equities of nearly any asset class since 2020 masterworks has sold three paintings with each returning over 30 percent net irr to investors and their new offerings usually sell out in hours 30 plus percent that's wild if you want to get in on it early all you have to do is go to masterworks.io create an account check out what they have and invest in their offerings and if you want to you can skip the waitlist by using the link down in the description back to the video all right let's talk about these shortcuts i've got set up here in the top left corner of my screen i've got three shortcuts widgets stacked on top of each other the first stack is all about saving me just a little bit of time every day by giving me access to actions that i take frequently throughout the day things like creating a new reminder or just starting a new note or writing an email all things that i would normally have to open up an app and then tap around a few times in order to do now if you want to quickly figure out what shortcuts are available for the apps that you use most often open up shortcuts tap on that plus icon up at the top of the screen then tap on apps over on the top right and then from there you can just look over the list of the apps that you have installed and find one that you might want to see what shortcuts are available for and add a shortcut really simply the other shortcut i've got in this particular widget is the split screen two apps shortcut which when run will open up a split screen in my case with apple notes over on the left and then safari over on the right because that's my research setup and i use it all the time but you can actually go in and choose which two apps you want to have open and even the ratio of screen that each one takes up now that shortcut's actually available in the shortcuts gallery so you can go in there and scroll around and see what else there is that you might be interested in now i've got three shortcuts widgets stacked on top of each other here and underneath that one i've got one dedicated to apple music so i've got that one set up with some quick access to some playlists and radio stations that i like to listen to while i'm working but if you want to know what shortcuts work with apple music you can put in your own widget like this open up shortcuts search for music and check out the explore apple music section and you can do play a playlist or play more from an artist player pause the album now in order to get your shortcuts to appear in their own widget stack like i've got set up here this is three different widgets all stacked together you're gonna have to go into shortcuts and you're gonna have to create some folders and that's what you're seeing in this widget stack here and then you can change what shows up by saying edit shortcuts and then changing which folder is actually showing all right so let me give you a quick tutorial on how i'm using focus modes with shortcuts in order to not just switch home screens but also change the wallpaper as well now for a tutorial like this you can either just play and pause stuff if it's going too fast or i'll try to write out the steps individually down in the description so first things first you're going to want to download some wallpapers that you're going to want to use for all your different focus modes and home screens and if you're wondering where i got the ones featured in this video i got them from canoopsy.media next hop into the photos app find one of your wallpapers that you want to use tap on the share button and then add it to an album and name the album something you're easily going to be able to remember or find once we get into the shortcuts app in my case i did writing focus photo editing focus things like that next open up your settings app and tap on focus and here either create or make sure you've already got set up all your focus modes that they're ready to go and that would include custom home screens if that's something that you want to use after that we're going to open up our shortcuts app and instead of going to the gallery we're going to tap on automation and we're going to create a new personal automation so tap on that plus the top of the screen and then go ahead and create personal automation and then when the new automation box pops up scroll down and find the focus that you want to edit on the next screen hit when turning on and on the next screen hit the add action button and then what you want to do is search for and select the find photos action once you've got that selected go ahead and tap on add filter and then you're going to change the album that shortcuts is going to search for to the album name that you created for each particular focus so in my example here i've got my writing focus album selected once you're done with that look at the search for apps and actions bar and then you're going to want to search for and select the set wallpaper action all right so now you've got a find photos action that looks for a specific album which should have the wallpaper that you stashed inside and that's followed by the set wallpaper action and then click on that little arrow you see there and make sure that you turn off the show preview toggle because when you run this action you don't need to get a preview you just want it to happen go ahead and tap on next and then the last thing you want to do is toggle off the ask before running button because again when you run your shortcut and this action hits you don't want it to generate a pop-up you just want it to seamlessly happen so tap on done get your widget set up and now when you tap on one of those shortcuts it's going to switch to the home screen that you wanted it's going to select that right focus mode and it's also going to eventually it takes a minute to run sometimes change your wallpaper background as well pretty cool right now one thing that i've done is i've kept a widget with those shortcuts in the same spot no matter which home screen i actually end up switching to so that just helps it keep consistent and if i want to switch in between any of these i'm just waiting for it to load here then i can actually do that from the same location all right that's how that works i'm almost done i just want to tell you about how i've got my dock set up because i did make a couple of tweaks there as well because as you can see i like to keep the dock nice and minimal don't like to over stuff it especially because i got the app library right here on the end of the dock so if you go into settings and then tap on home screen and dock you'll see i've got show suggested and recent apps in doc toggled off and the reason is i just don't want to have all the clutter of recently opened apps over on the right side there and also i can just search and drag an app into split screen mode really easily that way so i feel like i don't really need those but your mileage will vary alright wow i feel like that was a pretty action-packed video hopefully you found something that you liked if you did i'd really appreciate if you dropped me a time stamp down in the comments letting me know what your favorite part of the video was or what was most useful to you also don't forget we got a podcast you can subscribe to it's the daily tech daily tekk podcast and your favorite podcasting app we got a clips channel you can check out fresh new content uploaded there every week as well and i'll catch you guys in the next video later\n"