Finding Focus: Building a New Sleep Mode to Improve Discipline, Support Better Habits, and Save Me from Myself

For many, sleep is a complicated matter. It is vital to our health and well-being, yet many struggle to get adequate rest. According to the CDC, 36 percent of adults in the United States, approximately 120 million people, sleep less than seven hours each night.

Over a quarter of the US population needs to sleep more. Regretfully, since becoming a parent, I've become part of this unfortunate statistic.

Like most parents, The struggle became greater after having children. As if inconsistencies of sleep that are beyond my control aren't enough, I've recently started doing something that is certainly not in my best interest: staying up well after the kids are asleep and things are cleaned up. I don't do this every night, but I cycle through a couple times a week where the desire to just stay awake and enjoy some quiet time to decompress wins out over the better angels of sleep. My wife, who deals with the same sleepless nights but is far wiser than me, prioritizes what little sleep she gets over anything that doesn't involve her family. She's an intelligent woman, and as I often tell her, when I'm learning from her, I'm taking notes.

Some nights things works out. I go to bed later than I should, and everyone sleeps through the night. Other nights, I only get a few hours of sleep before the waking up begins. After a particularly tough week of this cycle, I made a conscious decision to take action and make a change.

The Goal

I started this project by making a short list of my goals. Here's what I came up with:

• Aim for seven hours of sleep every night

• Access to apps that promote relaxation and sleep

• Limit access to apps that inhibit sleep

• Turn on automatically 30 minutes before ideal bedtime

• Use context shifting to reinforce sleep time

With these goals in mind, I set out to reduce distractions during the time that I want to be sleeping and also improve my sleep discipline. After some planning, I started building a revamped sleep Focus mode.

Letting the Right Apps In

Okay, I have an admission to make. I use my devices in bed before going to sleep. Most often, I'm on an iPad Air or iPad Mini, writing a journal entry and reading on the Kindle app. Sometimes, I do this on my iPhone if I'm traveling or don't have an iPad near me.

I know that using technology before bed can contribute to sleep problems. More specifically, I know the apps that can distract me and present problems. I keep the few social media apps I use, streaming apps, email, and the open web, off limits.

So, what's allowed? Honestly, not much.

The Home Screen

I Have one widget and four apps that are a part of my Sleep Focus Mode. Phone and Messages are also accessible, but let’s be honest, they are easily ignored.

The Kindle Widget

I read when I wake up and before I go to sleep. I read several short passages from "daily" books in the morning, while I usually read one or two full-length books at night. The content of these vary, but it's typically nonfiction. Lately, I've been rereading Kitchen Confidential and The Diary of Anne Frank. The first is an old favorite that I'm rereading for the first time since It was released nearly 24 years ago, and the second is part of my research into journaling. The Kindle Widget is ideal here because it's bigger than any other app icon and will get me right into reading a book.

Ulysses

I do all of my writing in Ulysses. I like accessing what I'm working on quickly, especially if I'm in bed early. While that's rare, it's often because I want to do a little writing before I call it a night.

MindNode

I'm a nerd. Nerds mind map. I'm working on several active mind maps for various parts of my life, including management and team-building ideas, journaling, event or trip planning, and general content for this site.

Dark Noise

I often use Dark Noise while I sleep. I've always been a fan of white noise, and having two kids who like white noise machines has just reinforced my preference for it. I set up this simple shortcut to turn on brown noise, which I prefer over the more traditional white noise option in this app.

Gratitude

As part of my journaling practice, I use this shortcut to create a new daily gratitude entry in Day One. That's table stakes for my journaling practice. Some days, I write in other journals or do multiple entries, but at a minimum, I post a photo and a sentence or two that share something I'm thankful for.

Moving Safari

I've always kept Safari on my dock on all my mobile devices. It's one of my most frequently used apps, yet it's one of the apps I don't want easy access to in Sleep Mode. Right now, Apple doesn't let you have different docks for different focus modes, so now Safari lives on the Home Screen of my iPad and iPhone.

The Apple Watch

Most days, I wear my watch until I go to bed, so I have an automation set to change the face from California to the Breathe face an hour before my ideal bedtime. This furthers the shift from where the day-to-day noise of calendar, fitness, weather, etc., can become overwhelming to where the focus is much more on winding down.

The Honor System

I am at my best when I follow this simple rule: if I wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep, I can pick up my iPad or my iPhone, and I can do anything I want as long as it's reading a book or choosing an option on my Home Screen.

Having used this Focus mode for more than a month since beginning the first draft of this post, I can report that it works well. The context shift does make a difference. It reminds me that my interests are best served by not accessing social media, news apps, or any noisy inputs the broader net offers. Anytime I ignore this reminder and abandon my responsibilities around getting the best sleep possible, I am worse for it.

Finally, I know Focus modes can only do so much. It’s as much about making the right decisions and advocating for myself. Still, using the tools at hand to make it a little easier to make the right decisions is worth doing.

Jim Eagar Talks Repotting & Retirement on the Focused Podcast

My good friend Jim Eagar appeared on the Focused podcast last week to discuss the four phases of retirement and how to find our meaning and purpose in life.

I’m not even close to retirement, yet I found so much value and insight that applies to my experience. Regardless of where you are in your life, give this episode a listen. We all hope to grow old, and there are some thoughtful ideas here on how to do that with intentionality instead of by accident.

Weekly Quote: Taking a Strategic Pause with the Daily Creative

This week’s quote comes from Todd Henry’s fantastic book Daily Creative, which along with The Daily Stoic, are books I try to read every morning as part of my startup routine.

This technique is best done using analog tools, so grab your favorite pen and some paper and settle in. If you use a connected device, put it into focus mode so you aren’t disturbed. This isn’t meditation; you can still sip your coffee and take a note here and there, but avoiding external distractions is important. You are doing this to let your mind wander, not answer emails.

Give the strategic pause a try. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do; you have things you’re working on, and taking this to think will be helpful.

Finding Focus: Saving My 3 AM Self With Wind Down and Sleep

Our second child, now three months old, is different from our firstborn toddler, who became a steady sleeper pretty early on (I hear that chorus of duh's, parents of the Internet!). He prefers feedings every few hours (as so many babies do), so none of us sleeps particularly well.

After a 3 am feeding that often begins with some pretty intense wailing from our hungry little guy, I sometimes find myself wound up and can't immediately find my way back to sleep, despite how much I desire it.

Being awake, I sometimes feel pulled to unlock my iPhone and meander around various forums, Instagram, NYTimes, or other social media that generally do not help me relax. I know it's not great for me, and it's something I've been trying to change. Thankfully, the tool that has been the most helpful for me is a feature that came out in iOS 14 as part of the Wind Down and Sleep features Apple implemented. And, it's only gotten better with iOS 15's new Focus mode.

Adding Shortcuts to my Wind Down and Sleep Focus screens, I've created a few choices that give me the chance to make a better decision, causing me to pause for a moment before doom scrolling the night away. I've limited these to a few input and output options, including Kindle for slowing my brain down by reading a book and the opportunity to create a new document in Drafts or a new entry in Day One.

I'll write more about how I'm managing this on my iPad soon. Right now, my iPad is my go-to for Kindle, and while the Sleep and Wind Down features aren't as robust there, I'll share how I manage distractions on there as well.

These options are perfect and save me from my own bad choices. Decision fatigue is legit, and it hits hard at the end of a long day. As a tired dad, my instincts should be to give my brain a peaceful place to unwind after putting my kiddo back to bed, and I need all the tools I can get to help set me in the right direction and remind me that the dopamine hit of social media posts or the latest news can wait.

I suspect many people have discovered this feature as part of the powerful new Focus tools in iOS, iPadOS 15, and Monterey. Is that you? How are you using Focus, and how has it helped you? Drop me a note; I'd love to hear more about it.