How To Create A Custom Focus In Macos Monterey To Avoid Unnecessary Distractions

And we all know how important flow is. A few seconds of setback can take you minutes to recover from (especially when you’re in the zone).  So, how do you create this custom Flow? Let me show you. All you’ll need to make this work is either a MacBook Pro/Air or an iMac running macOS Monterey or newer. With such a device at the ready, let’s get our Focus on.

Create a custom Focus

1. Open System Preferences

Click on the Apple menu in the top left corner of your desktop. From the resulting pop-up menu, click System Preferences.

2. Access Notifications & Focus

In the System Preferences window (Figure 1), click Notifications & Focus.

3. Open the Focus tab

Once Notifications & Focus is opened, click the Focus tab (Figure 2).

4. Create the new Focus

Click + at the bottom left corner of the window and select Custom (Figure 3). In the resulting window (Figure 4), give the new Focus a name and select a color and an icon. After naming and selecting a color/icon, click Add to save the new Focus.

5. Allowing specific notifications

The next thing to do is to specific contacts or apps that will be allowed when this Focus is enabled. To do that, click + under Allowed Notifications From (Figure 5). From the pop-up list, select the contact(s) you want to be allowed to interrupt you when this focus is enabled and click Add (Figure 6).

6. Set the Focus to be enabled

You can either enable the new Focus manually (by moving the ON/OFF slider to ON, or you can set a schedule. To set a schedule, click + at the bottom of the Turn On Automatically section and then select Add Time Based Automation. In the resulting pop-up (Figure 7), select a time frame and days of the week for when you’d like the new Focus to be enabled. Click Add, and you’re done. The new Focus will be enabled, and you can be sure that only the contacts you’ve allowed will be able to interrupt your work (at least via macOS).  Use this new Focus feature wisely, and it will help you be more productive while not preventing you from missing out on important notifications from your VIP contacts.