{"id":76834,"date":"2021-08-02T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-02T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=76834"},"modified":"2021-08-27T11:57:04","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T16:57:04","slug":"the-road-to-macos-monterey-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/76834-the-road-to-macos-monterey-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Road to macOS Monterey: Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

macOS 12 Monterey<\/a><\/strong> should arrive in September or October of 2021. We’re featuring a series of articles titled “The Road to macOS Monterey<\/strong>” to not only introduce Rocket Yard readers to new or updated features of Monterey<\/a>, but to be an online reference when Monterey arrives. Today, I start off The Road to macOS Monterey with a look at Focus<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

What Is Focus?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Focus is a system setting designed to keep you focused on your work (or on not working) by stopping unnecessary notifications. Focus arrives for Mac, Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this sound like an existing macOS feature to you? Do Not Disturb<\/strong> is probably what you\u2019re thinking about. Think of Focus as Do Not Disturb on steroids, giving you the ability to create your own custom Do Not Disturb scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Accessing Focus<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Focus is just a click away on your Mac. Click the familiar Control Center<\/strong> icon in the menu bar. One of the items at the top (highlighted in orange in this screenshot) is Focus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"macOS
macOS Monterey Control Center<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Click the Focus button, and this minimal menu appears:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The basic Focus menu showing the default Do Not Disturb Focus mode<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Your choices at this point: invoke \u201cDo Not Disturb\u201d for the next hour, or \u201cUntil this evening\u201d. Both let you focus on what you\u2019re doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s say you\u2019re at work and really need to put some effort into a project. You\u2019d like to ignore all of the chimes and screen notifications that usually appear on your Mac screen until much later. Select \u201cUntil this evening\u201d to enable Do Not Disturb until 7 PM local time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Focus Preferences<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Select Focus Preferences from the Focus menu and System Preferences > Notifications > Focus appears:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Focus
Focus Preferences, found in System Preferences > Notifications<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By default, there is one \u201cDo Not Disturb\u201d focus mode which you can turn on <\/strong>and off<\/strong>. To allow notifications from specific people when Do Not Disturb is enabled, click the plus sign ( + ) at the bottom of the \u201cAllowed Notifications From\u201d and your contact list appears. Add one or more people from the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Creating a New Focus<\/strong> Mode<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Do Not Disturb is just one Focus mode. Let\u2019s look at how you can add your own focus modes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s say I really despise getting notifications while playing games on my Mac or other Apple devices. I\u2019ll set up a Focus mode to keep people from contacting me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I click the plus sign ( + ) at the bottom of the focus list (the sidebar that contains Do Not Disturb).  Next, I select a name (\u201cGaming\u201d), a color (orange), and an icon (a game controller), then click Add<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allowed Notifications<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For my Gaming Focus Mode, I only want my wife to be able to contact me while I\u2019m in the midst of gaming, so I\u2019ll click the plus sign and select her name from the contact list that appears and click Add. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d also like to get notifications from my Calendar of any appointments that I shouldn\u2019t miss. To do this, I click Apps<\/strong>, then click the plus sign again. From the list of apps, I select Calendar<\/strong>, then click Add:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Adding
Adding Calendar notifications to the Allowed Apps List<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With my Gaming Focus enabled, notifications only come through from my wife or the Calendar app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Automation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Moving further with this example, I\u2019d like to have the Gaming Focus enabled automatically when I launch the Chess app. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clicking on the plus sign below Automation, I\u2019ll select “Add App Based Automation.” From the list of apps installed on my Mac, I select Chess, then click Add. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I launch Chess, I see my game controller icon appear in the menu bar (highlighted in red in screenshot below), indicating that by launching the Chess app, I\u2019ve also enabled my Gaming focus mode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The game controller icon (highlighted here in red) indicates that the Gaming focus mode is enabled<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For more flexibility, trigger automations by location<\/strong> or time<\/strong>. A good example of a location-based automation would be one that enables a Focus when you are at a library studying, while a time-based automation could fire up a Focus every day during a regularly-scheduled 30-minute staff meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focus Options<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Click on the Options button at the top of the list of Focus settings, and these choices appear as checkboxes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Allow time sensitive notifications<\/strong>: This setting allows both people and apps to notify you for urgent reasons<\/li>
  • Allow calls from<\/strong>: If you want to let a specific group of people (family, teammates,…) check this box and select a Contacts group<\/li>
  • Allow Repeated Calls<\/strong>: Checking this box allows someone to contact you in an emergency if they call you twice within three minutes<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n

    Come Back to Rocket Yard for more macOS Monterey tips<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Focus is just one of the new features of macOS 12 Monterey. During the month of August, I’ll help you prepare for your upgrade to Monterey by explaining these features and how they work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Note that user interface details change in macOS Monterey with every beta release, so what you see in the screenshots here may not be the same in the final release. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A look the new Apple macOS Monterey feature “Focus”\u2014designed to help you stay focused on work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":77388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[90,4],"class_list":["post-76834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fresh-from-apple","category-tech-tips"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Road to macOS Monterey: Focus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A look the new Apple macOS Monterey feature "Focus"\u2014designed to help you stay focused on work.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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