I'm trying not to just resist everything new in mac OS right away, but this whole focus concept and do not disturb mode turning on without me asking it to and not having any option to disable it is just too much. I can imagine maybe using this in some exceptional circumstances where it actually occurred to me to do so, but I definitely want it to be a conscious decision.
In the preferences I could find no off switch. I tried setting it to only turn on when I'm in Antarctica and off when I'm not but it didn't seem to actually work as the little moon icon remained there even after this. I also tried to scheduling it to operate in a one minute window but even after that window elapsed it continued to be in 'do not disturb mode'. I don't tend to get a whole lot of notifications nor rely on them much but frankly the idea that they're being suppressed not under direction from me is infuriating and I don't want that to happen.
I've kinda dealt with this before. I also find it crazy you can't just turn Focus off with a switch. What I learned was that embracing Focus helped me.
Go into the Focus settings. Turn off Share and Focus Status. Then just add yourself a preset with no people or apps silenced (unless you want some), turn smart activation off (or don't if you want to use it), and you can now set that Focus.
You can take this a few steps further. For example I have 3 settings. One for a loud phone that I don't miss calls or notifications on, a quiet phone for when I don't need the alerts to be so loud, and a sleep mode where the only notifications I get are calls from family. I made shortcut buttons (the Shortcuts App is kinda powerful) for each mode using a widget on my home screen, and now I can switch to any one I want whenever. You can also long hold your lock screen, and edit your Wallpaper (background appearance and widgets on the lock screen). This setting can be linked to each Focus mode you've made. So you can easily link your phone's appearance to a mode so you know when they've changed.
But you can turn it off with a switch, unless I’m missing something? Isn’t the control center toggle exactly what you want?
I'm not so sure. When I look at that menu, I only see the options for a Focus.
Upon another check, yes. If you go to that menu, and press the selected Focus, it turns off. I guess I never tried that.