Apple Watch Productivity Hacks: replace iPhone for productivity

Have you ever wondered how does Apple Watch help productivity? Actually, the Apple Watch can be a great productivity hack. But, can it replace a smartphone? The smartphone reminds people of appointments, tracks their exercise habits, helps them reach places and entertains them. But it also creates a smartphone addiction, where you spend countless hours in endless scrolling, watching useless content and spending too much time in the virtual world. Apple Watch can help productivity because it lacks the big screen of the phone for fun stuff, but still retains all useful smartphone features. Let’s check out whether Apple Watch is good for productivity.

Important Note: This article was written for Apple Watches that have installed watchOS 9 operating system (this version is supported on Apple Watch Series 4 and later).

Table of Contents

Navigation

You can use Apple Watch for navigation. By using the Maps app on your watch, you can tell Siri to give you directions to your destination. Or you can open the Maps app, input your destination and get directions on your watch. Then, a turn-by-turn navigation will help you reach your desired place more easily. And you don’t have to take out your iPhone for navigation at all.

Texting, calling and online data

From Series 3, Apple Watch usually comes in two versions – Apple Watch GPS and Apple Watch GPS+Cellular (except for Apple Watch Ultra, which only comes in GPS+Cellular version). Apple Watch GPS+Cellular comes with eSIM inside. eSIM helps you use your Apple Watch for texting, calling and connecting online without your iPhone nearby. This is great because you can leave your home without your iPhone for some time.

Before getting an Apple Watch GPS+Cellular, check whether your mobile carrier supports Apple Watch GPS+Cellular. Many mobile carriers won’t support it, therefore getting Apple Watch GPS+Cellular can be useless. Instead, you can get a cheaper Apple Watch GPS version.

Less reliance on your phone

Owning a smartwatch means that you will check your phone less. Everytime you want to check the time, you reach for your phone. Often, this will be an excuse to unlock it and check messages, online news and social media. And before you know it, you have just spent hours consuming online content. If you get a smartwatch, it may happen that your screen time declines. Less screen time means a better chance that you will use that time productively instead of endless scrolling on the phone.

Notifications

Apple Watch can help with time management. You can receive notifications on your Apple Watch when your iPhone is locked. This is a great feature that enables you to get a notification when receiving an e-mail or when something happens. Then you can quickly check the notification and decide whether to act upon it or not. This all happens without the need to take out your phone and check what is going on. You are free to leave your phone in another place when doing important errands.

Reminders

You can also set and receive reminders on your Apple Watch. In this way, you will get notified about important events while being away from the phone. This is a great productivity hack if you are a forgetful person. Apple Watch also has many productivity apps. One of the great productivity apps are Pomodoro apps. When doing a task, they remind you when to take the break and when to continue with your task. In that way, you can prolong your concentration for hours when working.

Battery

The Apple Watch is famous for the fact that its battery will last only a day. The watch often requires to be charged once a day. With this, you get an additional device that you have to take care of whether it’s charged. However, with the new Apple Watch Ultra, the battery can last for a very long period of time. Much longer than previous Apple Watches, enduring more than a whole day of normal usage. This is great if you want to leave your home without an iPhone for the whole day.

Small screen

The Apple Watch has a small screen, unlike the smartphone. This means that the screen is only usable for productive things, and not for entertainment. Watching videos, scrolling social media and browsing the Internet is cumbersome due to the small screen. But it’s addictive and fun on a smartphone on the bigger screen. This enables you to perform a digital detox – you can only use necessary apps on the smartphone because fun apps are cumbersome to use.

In this way, Apple Watch can also maximise productivity because you won’t be tempted to use your phone so much, and potentially lose time on spending countless hours online.

Music and podcasts

You can listen to music and podcasts without your phone nearby. You just pair your Airpods or any Bluetooth headphones to the Apple Watch. You can go to the gym, go for a run, or do errands without having to carry your phone to change the song.

Utility apps for Apple Watch

Apple Watch has many utility apps for different things. On the watch, you can listen to podcasts and music, use it for navigation, do sleep tracking, and do fitness tracking. And all of that without having to have a phone in your hand. This is especially useful in gyms and other activities where a phone is too difficult to use.

Smart Home

You can use your Apple Watch to control your smart home. You have a Home app that is used to control the environment in your home. You can control your lights, smart TVs, thermostat, smart plugs, cameras and more. You can check a stream of what is happening on cameras in your home, change the brightness of your lights, change TV channels, adjust the thermostat, talk with Siri and do many more things.

Work

The Apple Watch can make you more productive at work. Here is how:

It’s useful If you are a busy person, like a doctor, teacher or a nurse. Apple Watch can send you notifications and you can check whether it’s an urgent one.
You may work in retail or customer service jobs, where you don’t want to be seen on the phone. Apple Watch can enable you to check urgent notifications without taking out your phone.
You work in jobs where you use your hands a lot. Having a watch means you can check out notifications without taking out your phone, taking off your gloves or touching the phone with dirty hands.
You can track weather constantly if you work in outdoors occupations where weather is important.
If you work in delivery, you can ask Siri for directions and the turn-by-turn navigation will help you reach your destination.
If you work in loud environments, like nightclubs with loud music, you can be alerted about incoming notifications with a vibration.
If you are on call 24/7, you can check out notifications and determine their urgency without getting out of bed.