My Phone's Home Screen

A quick tour of what I use my phone for

Hiya, long time no see! It’s been - glances at notes - more than 100 days since I last posted something on Paul’s Particles. A lot has happened, but I’m finally starting to settle into my usual routine again. I’ve got some great content planned, but I thought I would start things off with a simple post sharing what my phone looks like. I actually hide all apps that are not on my home screen in order to avoid distractions from social media apps or apps that I just don’t use on a daily basis, meaning my home screen is like a best-of collection for my phone.

Over the last couple years, my phone’s home screen has seen many iterations. I’ve experimented with countless apps, trying to utilise my phone to the fullest. In doing so, I’ve accumulated quite some opinions on different apps that work for me. Just a quick heads-up; all these apps are on my Iphone, so they may not be available to you.

Apps on my home screen

let’s first look at the apps that anyone (on IOS at least) can use.

Boring phone stuff

To get this out of the way, I have my banking app, a calculator, a public transit checker, my camera app, my settings app, my browser (Safari) and my wallet all on the home screen. These apps are quite boring, and I don’t really have much to say about any of them.

Google calendar

This is my calendar of choice. I can be quite scatter-brained at times, and I usually only plan a few days ahead so that I don’t have to keep track of to many things at once. Of course, sometimes you just HAVE to remember some important appointment, and that’s what my calendar is for. I have chosen this calendar as I find the UI to be the most intuitive and I really like how easy it is to sync other calendars to it.

Some other calendar apps I’ve tried include Apple’s calendar app and Fantastical. My main gripe with Apple’s calendar app is how it sometimes just doesn’t seem to sync to Icloud, making it act weird when you want to have the same calendar on your phone and desktop. Besides that, I don’t really like the UI all that much, but that’s just a matter of opinion. I also tried out Fantastical for a few weeks, but I eventually quit as I didn’t feel like paying for the (admittedly powerful) features the subscription had to offer.

Apple Mail

For my email service, I have everything connected to the standard Apple mail app. It works great, as it has all the functionality that I need it to have. I can have different inboxes for all of my mailing channels, and I regularly use the flagging feature to sort mail that I don’t want to respond to right away. The filtering on this is also great, and compared to stuff like Exchange I find that it is all a bit less in your face. A general theme you’ll find with most of my apps is that I like to have everything minimalistic as it helps me avoid distractions, and this app is no exception.

Apple Notes

For note-taking, simple is best in my opinion. I’ve tried different apps like notion or evernote, but I’ve found that they are just way to complicated for my needs. My note-taking workflow is as follows: whenever I’m out and about thinking meaningful thoughts, I record them in Apple Notes using titles that make them easy to find later. These notes usually act as quick memo’s that I can come back to later. At the end of every week (or day if I have lots of notes to process), the notes that are important for me to remember go into my Obsidian vault, where I can put more structure into them.

My only complaint about Apple Notes is that it doesn’t support markdown, which is why I explored some other (great) options like Bear and Notion. Bear is still among my favorites, and would be what I would use if I decided to switch to Android. Notion is also quite nice, but I feel like all of the features it has are just a bit too much, and it can be easy to fall into the trap of spending more time configuring your Notion than actually writing down notes. Besides that, I didn’t like how you had to be online to use it, because I usually take notes offline.

A timer

I find it useful to set timers sometimes. Whether it be while letting something simmer or to alert myself for some event, I find that a good ‘ol timer almost always does the trick. One interesting use of my timer has been that I can use it to keep myself on track during the day. Here’s how I do this. Whenever I’m working alone at home, I set a timer on some random intervals during the day. Then, if I happen to get distracted by something, I will always have a timer to make sure that I get back to focussing on the important things in life (like a cooking da pasta).

Quick example of what this would look like in a day-to-day scenario. At the start of the day, I’ve set timers every two hours. At first, I’m working in the morning, and the timers give me a reminder to take breaks from studying in order to drink some water. The timer doesn’t have to tell me what to do, as long as it makes me remember to reflect on what I’m doing. The same can be said for situations where I’m gaming instead of studying. Having a timer every two hours makes sure that I will remember my priorities for the day.

Whatsapp

This is the only social media I allow myself to check during working/studying hours. This is because all of my important messages come from direct messages or mail. Other social media like Instagram, LinkedIn, Discord or Twitter/X are all just fluff that I use to extend my socialising past only formal communication.

Google maps

When it comes to maps, Google takes the cake. One big problem with my other option (Apple maps) is that it is not quite as extensive here in the Netherlands, making navigation via public transit a little easier using Google. Add to this the fact that Google maps displays reviews, and you’ve got a winner in my books. For navigation, I actually slightly prefer the UI/UX of Apple maps, so it might actually knock Google off its throne in the future.

Habitty

This is a very lightweight app that has only one purpose: tracking habits. You create a habit and it lets you tick it off every day when you complete that habit. It’s completely free and devoid of clutter while being easy to use and read. I’ve tried other ways to track habits before, but they just seemed like too much busy work. To top things off, it also calculates habit strength, lets you set reminders and tracks your habit history.

My current strategy is to add a new habit whenever I feel like I’ve maintained an existing one long enough. This way, my habits get a chance to develop first before I decide to strenghten the next one. The way I develop habits is mostly based on the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, although I invented some of my methods myself. I may write a dedicated post about habits somewhere in the future.

Trello

This is a kanban app that I use for organising my blogposts and other social media content. Especially my blog posts benefit from this. Other project-management apps like Jira, Notion or Asana all seem like overkill to me, as I only really need a quick overview of my backlog and current articles. I’m currently enrolled in a course that also covers project management and kanban boards, so I may write a dedicated post about this in the near future to organise my thoughts.

If you’re interested in how kanban works, check out this brief introduction.

Spotify

I like listening to music, and this is an app that I can’t go without when it comes to excercising and studying. I have one dedicated playlist for pumping myself up and one for focussing on studying/working. Most of the music I stream can’t really be found elsewhere (things like lofi-music are hard to come by), so I really appreciate the sheer amount of music available on this platform.

More specific apps

Of course, not all apps may be applicable to you. The next few will be specific to people living in the Netherlands or just me in general.

Buienradar

This is a very nice weather app. It supports widgits on Iphone, which means I can have my local weather displayed right on my home screen. It displays both temperature and rainfall (something we Dutch people are quite used to), which is all the information I really need.

Tikkie

Dutch people are known to be stingy, and nothing plays more into this stereotype than the “tikkie-culture” we have here. Basically, Tikkie is an app that lets you request money from people, which they can then pay using their own bank of choice. It creates easy to share requests, and even lets you make a group of people so that you can keep track of shared costs. This last feature is mainly why I really enjoy using tikkie, as it enables me to more easily even out shared expenses with my brother.

Me specific apps

Finally, I’ve got some apps that I really just need to use for work or university. Think authenticator apps, work-management apps and classroom apps. These I group inside of a map, as I don’t need or want them taking up too much real-estate. Sadly, as I do use these on a regular basis, they are not going anywhere.

Final remarks

And that’s that. Those are all of the apps I have on my home screen. If I were to describe my phone in one phrase, it would be “deliberately boring and simple”. One of my key ways of avoiding procrastination is making sure I have nothing to procrastinate on besides useful stuff, and my phone plays an important part in keeping my surroundings “boring”. If any of the apps (and reasons behind the app) have inspired you in any way - I’m glad.

I also love hearing about your own setups and home screens, so feel free to slide into my DM’s on Instagram or to message me on Twitter/X or LinkedIn. I’m always open to discussing software, and maybe we’ll both gain some new insights.

Signing off, have a lovely day!