Turn On Your Phone's FOCUS Mode When You're Writing Music

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What's up guys today. I want to talk about Focus.

I really believe what separates a lot of people from being successful at their hobbies or the career and being happy and making money and those that don't, is this one thing. And it's the ability to focus. It's not intelligence is being able to do one thing without constantly being interrupted and it really drilled down and get good at something.

And I think the people that are going to be successful tomorrow are the ones that can block out all the fricking noise that's going on right now. And this applies so much to musicians and artists.

Today. I want to show you how you can make your phone work for you and helping you stay on track, helping you stay focused by using the "Focus Modes". And it's going to look like this. I'm going to just show you real quick before we're going to dive into it.

This is my home screen. Got some apps on it. I'm on an iPhone obviously, but this applies to Android too. They have their own way of doing this. I can slide down from the right and they have all these different focus modes.

Now it used to be just do not disturb and then not do not disturb. But now there's all these focus modes. I've created different focus modes. I'm going to select music and go back to my home screen. And all I see on my screen is just music apps and widgets that I have told to be on there when I'm in this mode and I'm not going to get interrupted by people. I've got all my notifications turned off. I've got the little red badges turned off. I'm not going to see any emails pop up. I'm going to focus in on writing music.

So which apps do I use? I use these widgets at the top. I have something called "Just Press Record." Literally. You just hit the app and hit record and start making an idea. This is great. If you're trying to come up with a melody or a chorus line, or you have some thought in your head, I use this all the time. It's it also works on the apple watch and you just a button you hit and you can just start talking and recording syncs perfectly with it. Great, great app. They have their own widget, which is nice.

I also have "My Notes." I can click my notes. I've got tons of song ideas, all ready to go. And if I need some inspiration or some lyric ideas. I've got Spotify here in case I want to go in and check out some references. And then I've got a bunch of my studio apps.

I've got a metronome, I've got rhymes zone. If I want to pull that up and check out a rhyme. If I'm looking for rhymes on something, I've got a folder full of other apps that I use oftentimes when I'm working on a song.

So anyway, this can be custom made. However you want to do it, but this is absolutely critical for when I'm working on music because I don't want to be distracted. The reason I'm so passionate about the subject is I'm very easily distracted. I have a hard time focusing.

That's why I actually love books like this. This is one of my favorite books called "The One Thing." It really helps you figure out what you're supposed to be doing every day. I highly recommend this. I'm going to make another video on just this book at some point. But I have looked at thousands of productivity apps, not thousands … I've looked at dozens and dozens and checked out a lot of different ways of trying to be productive.

And this is one of my favorite things. This just came out in the last iOS update, this focus mode. And I want you guys to use it. It's unbelievably critical.

My name is Zion. And if you don't know me, I'm the founder of the Triple Threat Artist online producer course, myself and Josh Doyle, a friend, an amazing producer, together we support students who want to become a triple threat, a singer, songwriter, and producer so that they can command respect with their music.

When they sit down to record something, they get people's attention because it actually sounds good whether they take it to another producer or pitch it as a demo. It sounds good, if that interests you, if you want to check out what we're doing and be part of our community, click the links below, we would love to have you.

We also have a couple of freebies on our website - gifts for you. So check those out as well.

So how do I create this? How do I create this focus mode? I'm going to show you a couple of other ones real quick.

I've got another one here called Get Known Service. This is a business I run. And when I turned that on it just shows me the apps for that. There's email. There's a couple of different productivity apps, things I used to run my business.

And then I also have one for painting. I love to paint. It's my way of relaxing. I've got a YouTube widget that widget up there actually is created. YouTube actually doesn't have a widget right now. So I had to download a widget tool. There's a bunch of great tools.

There's also one called photo widget because the photos widget that's native to iOS sucks. It doesn't allow you to customize what you see right there. And I have this as inspiration so I can click it and see all my bunch of paintings from other people and photographs that inspire me.

I've got my podcasts, I've got Spotify, I've got audible. I can just click into those things. So when I'm painting I have something to listen to. I just, I love that. I love listening to something being absorbed in something and then painting as well. All right.

And then I have notifications turned off for those things for painting. I do allow certain people, certain people in my life to interrupt me. It's not that big of a deal to me. So I allow that and I do that by customizing it.

And then lastly, I created this other focus group called morning planning. I really love this one. This has a quote right at the top. I have an app called motivation. I strongly strongly suggest getting this app. It is awesome. There's a lot of very cheesy motivational apps. This is actually very solid and it uses some of the best motivational quotes. And you can customize it depending on what you're going through.

If you need to be inspired, if you're working through depression, quotes about love or breaking up or whatever, you can do all that.

I also have my calendar. I have this is stuff I want to see in the morning. So in the morning when I wake up, I really don't want to see messages. I don't want to see email. I to just focus on my day, start thinking about what I have to do and start planning. So I strongly suggest you use these focus modes, especially for when you're writing or producing music.

It'll really help you stay in the zone and not being interrupted by a thousand silly things that distract you. They say when your focus is broken, when you're in the zone, it can take up to two hours to get back in the zone after you've been interrupted. And that is actually science. There are studies that have shown that I didn't make that up. That's amazing. I wouldn't think it would be two hours, but that's what they say.

So it's very, very important, regardless that you stay in your zone of genius. And if that's writing, if that's producing, if that's collaborating, if that's just practicing your instrument, your craft, you need to stay in that.

To customize all these things. There's a video I'm going to put in the link below and the guy walks you through exactly how to do it. If I sat here and did it and walked you through it, you'd be bored out of your mind. He does a really good job. I just followed his video and customized my screens to do this exact same thing.

But before you watch that video, I would just kind of break it down into these steps. I would, first of all, figure out what focus groups you want. Make a short list. I would not have more than five because otherwise it'll get overwhelming.

Just start with one, make a focus group. I want to do this. I want to create content at 3:00 PM every day or whatever it is. And I want this focus group to just turn on by itself, which by the way, it really cool. And it works with Siri.

And then I want you to decide what your goal is for that focus group. Is it to create content? Is it to network? Is it to have fun? Is it to do a hobby? What is your goal? And then figure out what are the apps notifications and people that are going to support you in that, that you want to be interrupted by.

If a new something comes in, maybe a new email, maybe you're waiting on requests for somebody maybe you're networking or songwriting or whatever you're doing. And you want to hear from certain people, you don't want to be blocking them, figure out who those people are and make a list for that focus group.

Then when you're ready, you're going to watch the video below and he'll show you how to set up that focus group. I think you're going to be amazed by how helpful this is for you. Do whatever you can to help keep yourself in the zone of your genius.

Guys. I hope that helps you.

If it did, please hit the thumbs up button on the YouTube video and consider subscribing to this channel and send me a note back. I'd love to hear from you.

This is Zion.

I'm going to talk to you next week.

See ya.

Zion

Step by Step walk through of how to setup Focus Mode: https://youtu.be/XgwZsHEAJb0

Purchase The One Thing Book here: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1885167776/ref=cmswemrmtdpP6KPN68W3SKY0W4ENNQ1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

This episode was produced and marketed by the Get Known Service