Tried iOS Focus plus blocking social apps for a week, two 90-minute deep-work blocks each day, and I still ended up fiddling with settings instead of finishing the hard bit. Is this just procrastination with extra steps, or do you have a setup that truly changes behavior — happy to be proven wrong.
Had the same “procrastination with extra steps” vibe until I put the Screen Time passcode in my partner’s hands and added Settings to Downtime during my 90‑minute blocks; I can’t tweak anything mid‑session. Focus still runs, but the lock is what changed behavior because the friction is front‑loaded, not during the work. If that’s too heavy, grayscale plus leaving the phone in another room got me most of the benefit.
Same here — “procrastination with extra steps” — until I started using Guided Access. I kick off each 90‑minute block by triple‑clicking the side button to lock myself into my editor, passcode on, so I can’t escape to Settings and tinker (). I also run a Shortcut that starts the Focus and a 90‑min timer when I open that app; how-to: Use Guided Access with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support. Caveat: it’s annoying if you need multiple apps, so I pre‑open the 1–2 tabs I’ll need before locking in — worth it.
What finally made it work for me was pairing Focus with a custom Lock Screen that shows a Reminders widget with one line like “Draft intro paragraph,” and hiding every Home Screen except the one with my editor; a Shortcuts automation then opens the doc when the Focus starts. @elizabeth-hun is right about removing escape hatches, but making the next action unavoidable beat tweaking for me — like taping the assignment to the fridge. If that still flops, it’s usually a fuzzy task, not a settings issue.