You’re probably familiar with your iPhone’s Do Not Disturb feature. The Focus mode feature works like a more customizable version of Do Not Disturb. In fact, Do Not Disturb is actually one of the Focus modes you can choose from.
The various Focus modes take the basic idea of Do Not Disturb—shutting off notifications on your phone—and build on it. You get the option to set different settings for a variety of scenarios: Driving, exercising, working, or whatever you want.
You might not want any interruptions at the gym, for example. At the office, you might only let Slack and Outlook ping you. While you’re driving, only your family can contact you. The feature reflects the different stages of each day.
And that brings us to Sleep Focus: A particular mode designed for nighttime, with a few extras attached: Not only can you set who is allowed to contact you and who isn’t, you can also use it to build up a healthier, more regular sleep pattern.
Set up Sleep Focus
You can have multiple Sleep Focus modes on your iPhone: You might have one for weekdays, one for weekends, and one for when you’re on vacation, for example. Head to Settings on your iPhone, then tap Focus and Sleep. If you don’t see Sleep listed, tap + (the plus icon, top right), then Sleep and Customize Focus.
Next, you can set the rules for this mode, as you can for any other Focus mode. Tap People, and you can select specific contacts who are allowed to get in touch with you while the Sleep Focus mode is active, and specific contacts who aren’t. Select Apps, and you can do the same for apps (remember many apps will have their own notification rule settings you can configure as well).
Further down is an Options menu: From here you’re able to customize how silenced notifications are handled—those are the alerts that aren’t allowed to distract you, based on the People and…
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