The Dock. That little area on your iPhone or iPad that contains a handful of apps which are available on every screen. It says something about what you’re about and what you want to achieve.
So existential, I know. Hear me out.
For me, the Dock represents a balance between two things:
- What I do most
- What I want to do more
I send and receive a good deal of email. So Mail is in my Dock on both my iPhone and my iPad. Because mail, for all its faults, is an important and useful tool for me.
But the Dock is something of a sacred space. It’s not just where I put things that I frequently need, but also where I put things I want to regularly see and be prompted to use.
When I unlock my device, it’s no accident that all {4,6} Dock items are within very easy reach. Nor is it coincidence that my eyes reflexively dart down to that part of the screen. I’ve behaved this way for as long as I’ve had these little gizmos and this behavior, along with an intentional approach to populating the Dock, help reinforce my priorities.
- Byword is in my Dock because I want to write more than I do.
- OmniFocus is in my Dock because I have things to do that need some doing.
- Evernote is in my Dock because I need easy access to the information it houses.
- Instapaper is in my Dock because I want to read interesting things curated by either myself or somebody smarter than me.
Now, by contrast…
- TweetBot isn’t in my Dock because, fab as Twitter is, it’s a timesuck.
- Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride are far and away my favorite iOS games, but are nowhere near my dock because then I’d just play all the time.
My Dock reflects my priorities. Does yours?
