The quickest way to increase your future mobile productivity is actually rather simple, though it could be expensive and unwieldy for some, not to mention a big adjustment: carry two phones!
In all seriousness, carrying two phones isn't an option for most of us, and I honestly can't say that it would improve your productivity by leaps and bounds. Today, the best way to be maximally productive with your phone is by taking the time to set it up properly, but tomorrow's phones can be more productive by actively optimizing how they work and what they do to fit our uniquely individual usage patterns.
Setting up your smartphone for maximum productivity is not unlike setting up an office. On your your first screen should be the stuff you use the most and nothing that's going to actively distract you. Your office desktop should be the same way; just the things you frequently use, nothing more.
If you aren't using that stapler every day, it doesn't need to take up precious space; if you don't open the clock app all the time, move it off the first page. Your drawers are the next pages of your launcher: stuff you need often, but not frequently. Folders put infrequently-used apps even further from reach, this is your filing cabinet.
This process takes time, and as you do new things, download new apps, and move to new devices, your usage patterns change - your job might change to where you need that stapler out every day. Adapting your mobile device set-up takes conscious thought about how we're using them, thought that could be better spent just doing.
The future of productivity will be when our phones actively anticipate our needs.
The future of productivity will be when our phones actively anticipate our needs. Google is edging into this space with Google Now, surfacing information as it thinks we might need it. But our smartphones and tablets could go much further.
They could actively keep apps running in the background when they know we'll using them during the work day, and dial back during evening and weekends. They could realize that while at work you try to ignore notifications from Facebook, and thus silence them when you're at the office. They could see that you haven't opened that app on your home screen in four weeks, but that new one you've used daily, and suggest swapping them out.
The future of mobile productivity is smart, predictive, and self-balancing. The only problem is the baby steps we're taking to get there.
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