iOS 14 Home screen Setup — Productivity + Minimalism edition
My ultimately efficient, and simple setup.
iOS 14 has been released in September 2020, and ever since I’ve installed the new OS, I spent my time to figure out what is the best iOS 14 setup for me. After trying a bunch of home screen layout, I found my setup. It’s really simple, but also very efficient. I’d like to share my setup with you today.
The Goal and The Theme: Boost Productivity + Minimalist Look
I am a productive nerd and also minimalist. The widget setup I am introducing below is very focused on productivity.
The Purpose of Widget
Before iOS 14 came out, we needed to open the app to get the information. Checking the weather, todo list, news, etc. But now, using widgets, we don’t necessarily need to. Now we can take a glance at the information and that’s it! So my setting, all widgets are added because it’s meaningful to be added. The widgets are displaying useful information that I actually need to look/check through a day.
I’ve seen there are lots of home screen theme layout idea with using customized icons. That’s great! It is definitely something inspirational but this my setup is not like that. I don’t introduce any theme or how to use custom icons but super-efficient.
Total 5 Screens (3 Home Screens, 1 Old Widget Screen, and App Library)
I will introduce a total of 5 screens.
- 1 old widget screen (the far left screen. I don’t know what is this screen name so I just call now it’s “old widget screen”.)
- 3 home screens
#1 Productivity Take a Glance — my primary home screen
#2 All Badges You Care
#3 Weather + News - App Library
OK so let’s dive into each of them :)
Old Widget Screen
There are 3 widgets on this screen.
- Batteries
- Fitness/Activity
- Screen Time
This screen’s purpose is it’s good to know but I don’t need to see every time I open my phone.
Batteries
I use Apple Watch every day and I don’t want to forget to charge my watch so it’s a good reminder.
Fitness/Activity (available only for Apple Watch user)
Mainly, I see the ring on my Apple Watch but I like seeing this number and graph at the same time.
Screen Time
Checking couple times a day this screen time is a good reminder to yourself to not use the phone that much.
Home Screen #1 — Productivity Take a Glance
This is my primary screen and there are 3 widgets on this screen.
- Timepage
- Things
- Spark
This screen is suited for my productivity system. I can check my schedule and tasks and keep my eyes on the current inbox volume.
Timepage — Schedule
Timepage is my calendar app I’ve been using and I love it. All of my calendar events will be displayed here either work or private events.
As you can see, this app is a super minimum design and customizable. I changed the theme to black so the widget background matches with other apps on this screen.
And as a bonus, this big widget displays the date and day on the left. That’s also really useful.
Things — Tasks
I use Things for my personal life todo list. I open this app in the morning and set my today’s task. Since I manage only personal tasks on this app, the task is something “go to UPS to return package”, “check Mailbox” something like this. Before iOS 14, I tended to forget small tasks even I was putting in the Things app before so seeing task name on the screen is a huge upgrade to me.
Spark — Emails
Spark is an email client I manage all my personal email accounts. I have 2 Gmail, 1 Yahoo Mail, and School Email address I still occasionally get emails. Most of the emails in these accounts are either the newsletter or online order receipt/status update. So, basically, not important. I turn off notification badges for all of my these email accounts. When I get an email something I need to read and respond, such as a conversation with my leasing office, the big number under the People category counts up. So only when I get those mid important email, I open this Spark app and do the action.
Also, this small widget shows the counts of how many newsletters and notifications I got. Every couple of days or so, I check those two folders to clean up to do inbox zero.
Home Screen #2 All Badges You Care
I only kept 10 apps’ icons throughout all my home screens. The 8 is on this main screen and 2 is on the bottom bar. I basically turned off all the notifications and badges so I can stay away from the phone as much as possible. But some of the notifications I don’t want to miss — those are these 10 apps.
Phone, messages, LINE, Facebook messenger
These are communication tools for my personal life.
Outlook, Teams
I’m an employee and my company use Microsoft Office 365
I use this Email app for my personal business.
* Email Client Tips
Nowadays, most of all email clients can manage all of your email accounts. But I like using different email clients based on my role. I am an employee, I am a blogger, and I have my personal life.
Spotify
I quite often use Spotify throughout the day. This is the only app I turn off badge in this home screen but since it’s very much frequently use the app and also the green app icon color matches quite well with other green icons app, I keep Spotify here.
Notion
I use Notion for my personal business and my personal life. All of my project notes, idea, checklist, wish list — all kinds of notes are managed on Notion. I want to access the note quickly so I keep in this bottom area.
Asana
I use Asana for my personal business. I am a writer of this Medium, and also a blogger. All of my personal business-related tasks are managed in Asana.
Home Screen #3 Weather + News
This is my secondary widget screen. There are 3 widgets on this screen.
- Hey Weather — small
- Hey Weather — medium
- News
- Photos
This screen’s purpose is like the old widget screen — it’s good to know but I don’t need to see every time when I open my phone.
Hey Weather — small size
I was not using this Hey Weather app until the iOS 14 release. I saw the Marques Brownlee’s iOS 14 setup video and found about this app. (Thanks Marques!) This app is for free, but the widget type I am displaying is a paid version. I usually don’t want to spend money on app subscription as much as I can avoid, but this app is totally worth it. I would say this Hey Weather is the best weather app for iOS 14 widget setup. For each widget size, they have multiple different templates to display different kinds of information. Plus, very customizable. You can select the widget background color from various options and also they have 7 different icon styles. I like minimalism design so so far I am using this blue background and minimal icon style.
In this small Hey Weather widget, I display today’s upcoming weather conditions and temperature. So I will know if it’s gonna be rain or too hot/cold in the next 5 hours.
Hey Weather — medium size
I also want to know how the upcoming day’s weather is like so in this medium widget, I display the next 3 day’s weather.
News
I don’t watch the news. To keep up news generally, I am getting a breaking news notification from the New York Times. Besides getting notification from NYT, I display 2 Top Stories topics in this medium-size widget to have an idea of what is going on in the world.
Photos
This is at the least productive and minimalism widget for me but this is something I am enjoying a lot. This is Apple’s default Photo app widget. Basically, whenever you go to this screen, the widget displays a random photo. Most of my photo albums are my baby or family photos. This small widget makes me smile during those busy days!
App Library
As I mentioned above, I only keep 10 apps on my home screen. Everything else is in this app library. This auto app organization system is so neat. Thank you Apple, I’ve been waiting for this years!
* Accessing App Tip
Since most apps are in this App Library, I use the “app search” bar a lot. This search bar is simply swiping down anywhere on your home screen. and type the app name you want to use. So I don’t need to App Library to scroll and open/close folder to find the app.
Okay, that’s all folks! Since iOS 14 is just released and I am sure lots of App company will support widgets more in the future. So excited this journey and I will keep eyes on the update and will keep trying to find what’s the best setup for me.
If you have any questions, please make a comment below. I also would like to hear your recommendations about productivity and minimalism set up ideas!
Thank you for reading this article :) Have a wonderful day!
