Automate Do Not Disturb

Client Notes

Last week, I helped Jadine migrate her data and hit the ground running on her new Mac, worked with Marci and Jan on cleaning up their 1Password databases, and found simple solutions to some tech frustrations for Leah and Bill.

Schedule Do Not Disturb

As I mentioned in You Can Reach Out Any Time, I schedule Do Not Disturb to be enabled overnight, currently 10:30 pm to 7 am. This way, you can call and leave a voicemail without interrupting my slumber. Time-based scheduling is one of three primary methods to automate a focus.

To schedule a focus using iPhone, iPad, or Mac, go to Settings > Focus and choose the focus mode you want to automate. Tap Add Schedule and then choose Time, Location, or App:

• For Time, specify the beginning and end of the period when you want the focus enabled as well as the days of the week for this schedule. You can set multiple time schedules for various periods.
• For Location, enter a street address or search for a location by name. For example, I have Do Not Disturb enabled automatically while I am at Oakland Peace Center, which is the location of my weekly rehearsals with Voices.
• For App, choose an app you use on this device. For example, I often use VLC on Mac to watch entertainment, so I’ve set Do Not Disturb to come on when VLC is the active application. If you want to schedule based on an app you only have on another device, go to your Focus settings on that specific device.

There’s also a Smart Activation option, but I haven’t found any clear documentation about how it works. There’s been so much inconsistency with Stolen Device Protection recognizing common locations, I’m not inclined to trust this feature yet either.

Do Not Disturb When on the Phone

There’s one particular limitation of Focus schedules on iPhone that I want to highlight. Phone calls are managed by a process that is not a dedicated app. You can verify this by showing the App Switcher while on a phone call. Thus, unfortunately, it’s not possible for the presence of an active phone call to trigger a focus mode.

However, if you have a regularly scheduled phone call, you could have Do Not Disturb triggered during that time. Or, when a meeting is on your calendar, your device might offer to toggle Do Not Disturb for the duration of the event. Otherwise, you would have to manually toggle the focus mode before and after your call.

Share Across Devices

You can set Focus schedules on any iPhone, iPad, or Mac. If you want your Focus settings to sync among your devices, make sure to toggle Settings > Focus > Share Across Devices. On any device where this is enabled:

1. Focus triggers made on other devices with Share Across Devices enabled will also occur on this device
2. Focus triggers made on this device will also occur on other devices where Share Across Devices is enabled

Apple Watch is only capable of adding time-based schedules (apart from toggling whether a Fitness focus is enabled during a workout). For Apple Watch to respect focuses shared by other devices, it might be necessary to navigate on the device to Settings > Focus > Mirror My iPhone — not available in the Watch app on iPhone. However, I can’t find any documentation to validate this.

Assuming this is true, if you’ve scheduled Do Not Disturb using iPhone and it comes on when you arrive at a certain place, your Apple Watch will mirror the experience and not ding you at the same time.