You should turn on iPhone lock screen widgets right away

If you have an iPhone and haven’t added some widgets to your lock screen yet, you really should. I’ve been neglecting this feature, and now that I’m using it, I can’t get over how much time and attention it saves.

The lock screen widgets are new, so here’s a twist

Apple released iOS 16 on September 12, 2022 and that has a number of new features, including lock screen widgets. As of this writing, the feature is about a month old, so you could certainly be forgiven for not even being aware of the lock screen widget (let alone playing with it).

Although I am aware of them, I admit that I have not paid much attention to them. Back in 2020, with the release of iOS 14, iPhones finally got home screen widgets.

It took me a while to get the hang of them myself, and when I finally did, I found them to be really useful. But when lock screen widgets arrived, my attitude was, “Who cares? I already have widgets.”

However, I’ve been trying to change some phone habits lately and I didn’t realize how much lock screen widgets could help with that.

They are not only useful, they can help you focus

Of course, there is a fundamental advantage to putting some information on the lock screen: you don’t have to unlock or open the phone to get that information. But I found that lock screen widgets offered a greater benefit because they helped me change two less productive phone behaviors.

First, I tried less to open the phone because opening the phone is an attention trap. You might think you only unlock your phone and open the home screen to check the weather or just to reference your to-do list, but when that magical portal to distraction opens, who knows what might happen?

A simple “Is it going to rain tonight?” could become social media immersion filled with distractions or googling random things.

Second, and directly related to that first point, I was trying to jump straight to the app I needed without any stops in between. While I’m sure there are people who have laser focus that allows them to open their phone, see all the shiny colorful app icons and no think of ten other things that are directly, indirectly or in no way related to the task at hand, i’m not one of them, and i’m sure many of you can relate.

In that sense, not only are iPhone lock widgets great on the “oh cool, I can see things without unlocking the phone” principle, they’re fantastic for my needs.

In my case, simply put, one of many Carrot Weather widgets (seriously, they have 19 widgets, including one that you can customize with any combination of 18 data points) and Todoist widget meant the number of times I had to open my phone and navigate through the home screen, and various apps crashed drastically.

Now, by glancing at my phone, I can see the time and the weather forecast (one tap to see detailed weather). I can also see my daily entries in the to-do list without opening the phone, and when I want to mark them, add more or see in more detail, it’s just one tap that takes me right to the daily to-do list.

It’s a simple thing, but just by adding two widgets, the number of times a day I open my phone to access my to-do list and end up distracted by something else has dropped. In fact, opening the phone to the home screen to use other apps feels like a conscious choice instead of the “well, here we are on the home screen for the 200th time today” routine.

Your experience with lock screen widgets may not be that dramatic, I certainly can’t promise that they will magically help you interact with your phone in a different, less distracting and more purposeful way.

But I would still encourage you to check it out this guide to add widgets to your iPhone’s lock screen to see native iOS widgets, the widgets your favorite apps have, and how they can put the information you want right in front of you.