Simplifying my iPhone Home Screen

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Since widgets came out with iOS 15, I’ve been obsessed with finding the right amount of information to fit on that screen…the perfect combo of accessibility and glanceability.

I had multiple pages, customizable by focus modes, with widgets galore…until a few days ago.

I came to a realization that I wasn’t using most of the widgets and the multiple pages made it harder for me to find what I wanted quickly.

So I decided to do 2 things:

  1. Simplify my home screens to be 1 page + the App Library1
  2. Make use of the hidden “Today” screen for widgets I want to reference or use but don’t always want to see.

The result is this:

My Today screen and sole Home Screen page

The left shows the Today screen, which includes the big calendar widget with all of my appointments and such. It also includes:

  1. Drafts’ quick actions widget for fast input
  2. A shortcuts widget for commonly used shortcuts I don’t keep on my Home Screen.
  3. And then below the fold, a number of Home+ widgets for controlling my home and scenes.

The right show’s my sole Home Screen page, which includes:

  1. A medium widget stack with CARROT Weather, another calendar widget with just the date and upcoming appointments, and recent Drafts
  2. A small widget stack with links to my Dashboard and the Today note in Craft
  3. A small widget stack with Apple Music and Overcast.

The icons, from top to bottom and left to right are:

  1. The Phone
  2. PCalc (the best calculator app)
  3. The “I have an idea” shortcut, which takes text or voice input and adds a Draft and a note to Craft
  4. The “Read” shortcut, which gives me a list of reading apps, including Reader by Readies, Substack, Kindle, News, and a link to my unsorted notes in Craft
  5. The “Journal” shortcut, which takes text or voice input and adds a bullet item to my today note in Craft2
  6. The Clock app, so I can see the time down to the second.
  7. The “Add Task” shortcut, which creates a new task in Omnifocus
  8. The “Money” shortcut, which gives me a list of all the financial apps I check each morning

And then the dock: Safari, Messages, Craft, Omnifocus.

A couple of bonus screenshots:

My Lock Screen with Overcast, Temperature, and Battery widgets
Executing the Read shortcut
Executing the Journal shortcut

I’d love to know: what does your iPhone home screen look like? Do you use widgets? And what about the Lock Screen?

  1. I still have some specific pages for Focus Modes like Travel and “Green Zone,” but the same rules apply. ?
  2. I’m trying to journal more but not in any kind of formal process. Just random thoughts throughout the day. ?

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